OUT TO WIN

THE STORY OF AMERICA IN FRANCE

BY

CONINGSBY DAWSON

AUTHOR OF "THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES, " "CARRY ON: LETTERS IN WARTIME, "ETC. 

NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEADMCMXVIII

Copyright, 1918, BY JOHN LANE COMPANY

Press of J. J. Little & Ives Company New York, U. S. A. 

TO

MY AMERICAN FRIENDS AND BROTHERS-IN-ARMS THIS FRANK APPRECIATION OFTHEIR EFFORT IN FRANCE IS DEDICATED

CONTENTS

 PAGE

 A PREFACE FOR FOOLS ONLY 9

 "WE'VE GOT FOUR YEARS" 29

 WAR AS A JOB 61

 THE WAR OF COMPASSION 109

 THE LAST WAR 196

A PREFACE FOR FOOLS ONLY

I am not writing this preface for the conscious fool, but for hisself-deceived brother who considers himself a very wise person. Myhope is that some persons may recognise themselves and be providedwith food for thought. They will usually be people who havecontributed little to this war, except mean views and endless talk. Had they shared the sacrifice of it, they would have developed withinthemselves the faculty for a wider generosity. The extraordinary thingabout generosity is its eagerness to recognise itself in others. 

You find these untravelled critics and mischief-makers on both sidesof the Atlantic. In most cases they have no definite desire to workharm, but they have inherited cantankerous prejudices which date backto the American Revolution, and they lack the vision to perceive thatthis war, despite its horror and tragedy, is the God-given chance ofcenturies to re-unite the great Anglo-Saxon races of the world ina truer bond of kindness and kinship. If we miss this chance we areflinging in God's face His splendid recompense for our common heroism. 

It is an unfortunate fact that the merely foolish person constitutesas grave a danger as the deliberate plotter. His words, if they areacid enough, are quoted and re-quoted. They pass from mouth to mouth, gaining in authority. By the time they reach the friendly countryat which they are directed, they have taken on the appearance of anopinion representative of a nation. The Hun is well aware of the valueof gossip for the encouraging of divided counsels among his enemies. He invents a slander, pins it to some racial grievance, confides itto the fools among the Allies and leaves them to do the rest. Someof them wander about in a merely private capacity, nagging withoutknowledge, depositing poison, breeding doubts as to integrity, andall the while pretending to maintain a mildly impartial and judicialmental attitude. Their souls never rise from the ground. Theirbrains are gangrenous with memories of cancelled malice. They suspecthero-worship; it smacks to them of sentiment. They examine, butnever praise. Being incapable of sacrifice, they find somethingmeretriciously melodramatic about men and nations who are capable. Hadthey lived nineteen hundred years ago, they would have haunted Calvaryto discover fraud. 

Then, there are others, by far more dangerous. These make theirappearance daily in the morning press, thrusting their pessimismsacross our breakfast tables, beleaguering our faith with ill-naturedjudgements and querulous warnings. One of our London Dailies, forinstance, specializes in annoying America; it works as effectively tobreed distrust as if its policy were dictated from Berlin. 

I have just returned from a prolonged tour of America's activities inFrance. Wherever I went I heard nothing but unstinted appreciationof Great Britain's surpassing gallantry: "We never knew that youBritishers were what you are; you never told us. We had to come overhere to find out. " When that had been said I always waited, for Iguessed the qualifying statement that would follow: "There's onlyone thing that makes us mad. Why the devil does your censor allow theP---- to sneer at us every morning? Your army doesn't feel that waytowards us; at least, if it ever did, it doesn't now. Are there reallypeople in England who--?"

At this point I would cut my questioner short: "There are men soshort-sighted in every country that, to warm their hands, they wouldburn the crown of thorns. You have them in America. Such men are notrepresentative. "

The purpose of this book is to tell what America has done, is doing, and, on the strength of her splendid and accomplished facts, to pleadfor a closer friendship between my two countries. As an Englishman whohas lived in the States for ten years and is serving with theCanadian Forces, I feel that I have a sympathetic understanding ofthe affections and aloofnesses of both nations; as a member of bothfamilies I claim the domestic right of indulging in a little plainspeaking to each in turn. 

In my appeal I leave the fighting men out of the question. Death isa universal teacher of charity. At the end of the war the men whosurvive will acknowledge no kinship save the kinship of courage. Tohave answered the call of duty and to have played the man, will makea closer bond than having been born of the same mother. At a New Yorktheatre last October I met some French officers who had fought on theright of the Canadian Corps frontage at the Somme. We got to talking, commenced remembering, missed the entire performance and parted as oldfriends. In France I stayed with an American-Irish Division. They werefor the most part American citizens in the second generation: few ofthem had been to Ireland. As frequently happens, they were more Irishthan the Irish. They had learned from their parents the abuses whichhad driven them to emigrate, but had no knowledge of the reciprocalprovocations which had caused the abuses. Consequently, when theysailed on their troop-ships for France they were anti-British almostto a man--many of them were theoretically Sinn Feiners. They werecoming to fight for France and for Lafayette, who had helped to lickBritain--but not for the British. By the time I met them they weremarvellously changed. They were going into the line almost any dayand--this was what had worked the change--they had been trained fortheir ordeal by British N. C. O. 's and officers. They had swamped theirhatred and inherited bitterness in admiration. Their highest hopewas that they might do as well as the British. "They're men if youlike, " they said. In the imminence of death, their feeling for theseold-timers, who had faced death so often, amounted to hero-worship. Itwas good to hear them deriding the caricature of the typical Briton, which had served in their mental galleries as an exact likeness forso many years. It was proof to me that men who have endured the samehell in a common cause will be nearer in spirit, when the war isended, than they are to their own civilian populations. For in allbelligerent countries there are two armies fighting--the militaryand the civilian; either can let the other down. If the civilian armyloses its _morale_, its vision, its unselfishness, and allows itselfto be out-bluffed by the civilian army of Germany, it as surelybetrays its soldiers as if it joined forces with the Hun. We executesoldiers for cowardice; it's a pity that the same law does not governthe civilian army. There would be a rapid revision in the tone ofmore than one English and American newspaper. A soldier is shotfor cowardice because his example is contagious. What can be morecontagious than a panic statement or a doubt daily reiterated? Alreadythere are many of us who have a kindlier feeling and certainlymore respect for a Boche who fights gamely, than for a Britisheror American who bickers and sulks in comfort. Only one doubt asto ultimate victory ever assails the Western Front: that it may beattacked in the rear by the premature peace negotiations of thecivil populations it defends. Should that ever happen, the WesternFront would cease to be a mixture of French, Americans, Canadians, Australians, British and Belgians; it would become a nation by itself, pledged to fight on till the ideals for which it set out to fight aredefinitely established. 

We get rather tired of reading speeches in which civilians presumethat the making of peace is in their hands. The making may be, but theacceptance is in ours. I do not mean that we love war for war's sake. We love it rather less than the civilian does. When an honourablepeace has been confirmed, there will be no stauncher pacifist thanthe soldier; but we reserve our pacifism till the war is won. Weshall be the last people in Europe to get war-weary. We started witha vision--the achieving of justice; we shall not grow weary till thatvision has become a reality. When one has faced up to an ultimateself-denial, giving becomes a habit. One becomes eager to be allowedto give all--to keep none of life's small change. The fury of anideal enfevers us. We become fanatical to outdo our own best recordin self-surrender. Many of us, if we are alive when peace is declared, will feel an uneasy reproach that perhaps we did not give enough. 

This being the spirit of our soldiers, it is easy to understand theircontempt for those civilians who go on strike, prate of weariness, scream their terror when a few Hun planes sail over London, devotecolumns in their papers to pin-prick tragedies of food-shortage, andcloud the growing generosity between England and America by cavillingcriticisms and mean reflections. Their contempt is not that of thefighter for the man of peace; but the scorn of the man who is doinghis duty for the shirker. 

A Tommy is reading a paper in a muddy trench. Suddenly he scowls, laughs rather fiercely and calls to his pal, jerking his head as asign to him to hurry. "'Ere Bill, listen to wot this 'ere cry-babysays. 'E thinks we're losin' the bloomin' war 'cause 'e didn't get anegg for breakfast. Losin' the war! A lot 'e knows abart it. A blinkin'lot 'e's done either to win or lose it. Yus, I don't think! ThankGawd, we've none of 'is sort up front. "

To men who have gazed for months with the eyes of visionaries onsudden death, it comes as a shock to discover that back there, wherelife is so sweetly certain, fear still strides unabashed. They hadthought that fear was dead--stifled by heroism. They had believed thatpersonal littleness had given way before the magnanimity of martyrdom. 

In this plea, then, for a firmer Anglo-American friendship I addressthe civilian populations of both countries. The fate of such afriendship is in their hands. In the Eden of national destinies Godis walking; yet there are those who bray their ancient grievances soloudly that they all but drown the sound of His footsteps. 

Being an Englishman it will be more courteous to commence with thefools of my own flesh and blood. Let me paint a contrast. 

Last October I sailed back from New York with a company of Americanofficers; they consisted in the main of trained airmen, Navy expertsand engineers. Before my departure the extraordinary sternness ofAmerica, her keenness to rival her allies in self-denial, her willingmobilisation of all her resources, had confirmed my optimism gained inthe trenches, that the Allies must win; the mere thought of compromisewas impossible and blasphemous. This optimism was enhanced on thevoyage by the conduct of the officers who were my companions. Theycarried their spirit of dedication to an excess that was almostirksome. They refused to play cards. They were determined notto relax. Every minute they could snatch was spent in studyingtext-books. Their country had come into the war so late that theyresented any moment lost from making themselves proficient. Whenexpostulated with they explained themselves by saying, "When we'vedone our bit it will be time to amuse ourselves. " They were dullcompany, but, in a time of war, inspiring. All their talk was of whenthey reached England. Their enthusiasm for the Britisher was suchthat they expected to be swept into a rarer atmosphere by the closercontact with heroism. 

We had an Englishman with us--obviously a consumptive. He typified forthem the doggedness of British pluck. He had been through the entiresong and dance of the Mexican Revolution; a dozen times he had beenlined up against a wall to be shot. From Mexico he had escaped to NewYork, hoping to be accepted by the British military authorities. Notunnaturally he had been rejected. The purpose of his voyage to the OldCountry was to try his luck with the Navy. He held his certificate asa highly qualified marine engineer. No one could persuade him thathe was not wanted. "I could last six months, " he said, "it would besomething. Heaps of chaps don't last as long. "

This man, a crock in every sense, hurrying back to help his country, symbolised for every American aboard the unconquerable courage ofGreat Britain. If you hadn't the full measure of years to give, givewhat was left, even though it were but six months. I may add thatin England his services were accepted. His persistence refused to bedisregarded. When red-tape stopped his progress, he used back-stairsstrategy. No one could bar him from his chance of serving. 

In believing that he represented the Empire at its best, my Americanswere not mistaken. There are thousands fighting to-day who share hisexample. One is an ex-champion sculler of Oxford; even in those dayshe was blind as a bat. His subsequent performance is consistent withhis record; we always knew that he had guts. At the start of the war, he tried to enlist and was turned down on the score of eyesight. Hetried four times with no better result. The fifth time he presentedhimself he was fool-proof; he had learnt the eyesight tests by heart. He went out a year ago as a "one pip artist"--a second lieutenant. Within ten months he had become a captain and was actinglieutenant-colonel of his battalion, all the other officers havingbeen killed or wounded. At Cambrai he did such gallant work that hewas personally congratulated by the general of his division. TheseAmerican officers had heard such stories; they regarded England with akind of worship. As men who hoped to be brave but were untested, theyfound something mystic and well-nigh incredible in such utter courage. The consumptive racing across the Atlantic that he might do somethingfor England before death took him, made this spirit real to them. 

We travelled to London as a party and there for a time we heldtogether. The night before several set out for France, we had afarewell gathering. The consumptive, who had just obtained hiscommission, was in particularly high feather; he brought with him afriend, a civilian official in the Foreign Office. Please picture thegroup: all men who had come from distant parts of the world to do onejob; men in the army, navy, and flying service; every one in uniformexcept the stranger. 

Talk developed along the line of our absolute certainty as to completeand final victory. The civilian stranger commenced to raise his voicein dissent. We disputed his statements. He then set to work to runthrough the entire argument of pessimism: America was too far away tobe effective; Russia was collapsing; France was exhausted; England hadreached the zenith of her endeavour; Italy was not united in purpose. On every front he saw a black cloud rising and took a dyspeptic'sdelight in describing it as a little blacker than he saw it. There wasan apostolic zeal about the man's dreary earnestness. He spoke withthat air of authority which is not uncommon with civilian Governmentofficials. The Americans stared rather than listened; this was notthe mystic and utter courage which they had expected to find well-nighincredible. Their own passion far out-topped it. 

The argument reached a sudden climax. There were wounded officerspresent. One of them said, "You wouldn't speak that way if you had thefoggiest conception of the kind of chaps we have in the trenches. "

"It makes no difference what kind they are, " the pessimist repliedintolerantly. "I'm asking you to face facts. Because you've succeededin an attack, you soldiers seem to think that the war is ended. Youbase your arguments all the time on your little local knowledge ofyour own particular front. "

The discussion ceased abruptly. Every one sprang up. Voices strovetogether in advising this "facer of facts" to get into khaki andto go to where he could obtain precisely the same kind of littlelocal knowledge--perhaps, a few wounds as well. His presence wasdishonourable--contaminating. We filed out and left him sitting humpedin a chair, looking puzzled and pathetic, murmuring, "But I thought Iwas among friends. "

My last clear-cut recollection is of a chubby young AmericanNaval Airman standing over him, with clenched fists, passionatelyinstructing him in the spiritual geography of America. That's onetype of fool; the type who specialises in catastrophe; the type who ineternally facing up to facts, takes no account of that magic quality, courage, which can make one man more terrible than an army; the typewho is so profoundly well-informed, about externals, that he ignoresthe mightiness of soul that can remould externals to spiritualpurposes. Were I a German, the spectacle of that solitary consumptiveleaving the climate which meant life to him and hastening home to givejust six months of service to his country, would be more menacing thanthe loss of an entire corps frontage. 

And there's the type who can't forget; he suffers from a fundamentallack of generosity. The Englishman of this type can't refrain fromquoting such phrases as, "Too proud to fight, " whenever opportunityoffers. His American counterpart insists that he is not fighting forGreat Britain, but for the French. He makes himself offensive bysilly talk about sister republics, implying that all other forms ofGovernment are essentially tyrannic. He never loses an opportunityto mention Lafayette, assuming that one French man is worth tenBritishers. A very gross falsehood is frequently on the lips of thissort of man; he doesn't know where he picked it up and has nevertroubled to test its accuracy. I can tell him where it originated; atBerlin in the bureau for Hun propaganda. Every time he utters it he ishelping the enemy. This falsehood is to the effect that Great Britainhas conserved her man-power; that in the early days she let Frenchmendo the fighting and that now she is marking time till Americans areready to die in her stead. This statement is so stupendously untruethat it goes unheeded by those who know the empty homes of England orhave witnessed the gallantry of our piled-up dead. 

Then there's the jealous fool--the fool who in England will see noreason why this book should have been published. His line of argumentwill be, "We've been in this war for more than three years. We've doneeverything that America is doing; because she's new to the game, we'redoing it much better. We don't want any one to appreciate us, so whygo praising her?" Precisely. Why be decent? Why seek out affections?Why be polite or kindly? Why not be automatons? I suppose the answeris, "Because we happen to be men, and are privileged temporarily to beplaying in the rôle of heroes. The heroic spirit rather educates oneto hold out the hand of friendship to new arrivals of the same sort. "

There is one type of fool, exclusively American, whose stupidityarises from love and tenderness. Very often she is a woman. Shehas been responsible for the arrival in France of a number ofnarrow-minded and well-intentioned persons; their errand is toinvestigate vice-conditions in the U. S. Army. This suspicion of thewomen at home concerning the conduct of their men in the field, isdirectly traceable to reports of the debasing influences of war set incirculation by the anti-militarists. I want to say emphatically thatcleaner, more earnest, better protected troops than those from theUnited States are not to be found in Europe. Both in Great Britain andon the Continent their puritanism has created a deep impression. Bytheir idealism they have made their power felt; they are men with avision in their eyes, who have travelled three thousand miles to keepa rendezvous with death. That those for whom they are prepared to dieshould suspect them is a degrading disloyalty. That trackers shouldbe sent after them from home to pick up clues to their unworthinessis sheerly damnable. To disparage the heroism of other nations isbad enough; to distrust the heroes of your own flesh and blood, attributing to them lower than civilian moral standards, is to beguilty of the meanest treachery and ingratitude. 

Here, then, are some of the sample fools to whom this preface isaddressed. The list could be indefinitely lengthened. "The fool hathsaid in his heart, 'There is no God'. " He says it in many ways andtakes a long while in saying it; but the denying of God is usually thebeginning and the end of his conversation. He denies the vision ofGod in his fellow-men and fellow-nations, even when the spikes of thecross are visibly tearing wounds in their feet and hands. 

Life has swung back to a primitive decision since the war commenced. The decision is the same for both men and nations. They can choose theworld or achieve their own souls. They can cast mercenary lots forthe raiment of a crucified righteousness or take up their martyrdomas disciples. Those men and nations who have been disciples togethercan scarcely fail to remain friends when the tragedy is ended. Whatthe fool says in his heart at this present is not of any lastingimportance. There will always be those who mock, offering vinegar inthe hour of agony and taunting, "If thou be what thou sayest.... " Butin the comradeship of the twilit walk to Emmaus neither the fool northe mocker are remembered. 

OUT TO WIN

I

"WE'VE GOT FOUR YEARS"

The American Troops have set words to one of their bugle calls. Thesewords are indicative of their spirit--of the calculated determinationwith which they have faced up to their adventure: an adventureunparalleled for magnitude in the history of their nation. 

They fall in in two ranks. They tell off from the right in fours. "Move to the right in fours. Quick March, " comes the order. Thebugles strike up. The men swing into column formation, heads erectand picking up the step. To the song of the bugles they chant words asthey march. "We've got four years to do this job. We've got four yearsto do this job. "

That is the spirit of America. Her soldiers give her four years, butto judge from the scale of her preparations she might be planning forthirty. 

America is out to win. I write this opening sentence in Paris where Iam temporarily absent from my battery, that I may record the story ofAmerica's efforts in France. My purpose is to prove with facts thatAmerica is in the war to her last dollar, her last man, and for justas long as Germany remains unrepentant. Her strength is unexpended, her spirit is un-war-weary. She has a greater efficient man-powerfor her population than any nation that has yet entered the arenaof hostilities. Her resources are continental rather than national;it is as though a new and undivided Europe had sprung to arms inmoral horror against Germany. She has this to add fierceness to hersoul--the reproach that she came in too late. That reproach is beingwiped out rapidly by the scarlet of self-imposed sacrifice. She didcome in late--for that very reason she will be the last of Germany'sadversaries to withdraw. 

She did not want to come in at all. Many of her hundred millionpopulation emigrated to her shores out of hatred of militarism and toescape from just such a hell as is now raging in Europe. At first itseemed a far cry from Flanders to San Francisco. Philanthropy couldstretch that far, but not the risking of human lives. Moreover, theAmerican nation is not racially a unit; it is bound together byits ideal quest for peaceful and democratic institutions. It was adifficult task for any government to convince so remote a people thattheir destiny was being made molten in the furnace of the WesternFront; when once that truth was fully apprehended the diverse soulsof America leapt up as one soul and declared for war. In so doing thepeople of the United States forewent the freedom from fear that theyhad gained by their journey across the Atlantic; they turned back intheir tracks to smite again with renewed strength and redoubled hatethe old brutal Fee-Fo-Fum of despotism, from whose clutches theythought they had escaped. 

America's is the case of The Terrible Meek; for two and a half yearsshe lulled Germany and astonished the Allies by her abnormal patience. The most terrifying warriors of history have been peace-loving nationshounded into hostility by outraged ideals. Certainly no nation wasever more peace-loving than the American. To the boy of the MiddleWest the fury of kings must have read like a fairy-tale. The appeal toarmed force was a method of compelling righteousness which his entiretraining had taught him to view with contempt as obsolete. Yet neverhas any nation mobilised its resources more efficiently, on so titanica scale, in so brief a space of time to re-establish justice witharmed force. The outraged ideal which achieved this miracle was thedenial by the Hun of the right of every man to personal liberty andhappiness. 

Few people guessed that America would fling her weight so utterly intothe winning of the Allied cause. Those who knew her best thought itscarcely possible. Germany, who believed she knew her, thought itleast of all. German statesmen argued that America had too much tolose by such a decision--too little to gain; the task of transportingmen and materials across three thousand miles of ocean seemedinsuperable; the differing traditions of her population would make itimpossible for her to concentrate her will in so unusual a direction. Basing their arguments on a knowledge of the deep-seated selfishnessof human nature, Hun statesmen were of the fixed opinion that noamount of insult would compel America to take up the sword. 

Two and a half years before, those same statesmen made the samemistake with regard to Great Britain and her Dominions. The Britishwere a race of shop-keepers; no matter how chivalrous the call, nothing would persuade them to jeopardise their money-bags. If theydid for once leap across their counters to become Sir Galahads, thenthe Dominions would seize that opportunity to secure their own basesafety and to fling the Mother Country out of doors. The British gavethese students of selfishness a surprise from which their militarymachine has never recovered, when the "Old Contemptibles" held up theadvance of the Hun legions and won for Europe a breathing-space. TheDominions gave them a second lesson in magnanimity when Canada's ladsbuilt a wall with their bodies to block the drive at Ypres. Americarefuted them for the third time, when she proved her love ofworld-liberty greater than her affection for the dollar, buglingacross the Atlantic her shrill challenge to mailed bestiality. Germanyhas made the grave mistake of estimating human nature at its lowestworth as she sees it reflected in her own face. In every case, inher judgment of the two great Anglo-Saxon races, she has been atfault through over-emphasising their capacity for baseness andunder-estimating their capacity to respond to an ideal. It was anideal that led the Pilgrim Fathers westward; after more than twohundred years it is an ideal which pilots their sons home again, racing through danger zones in their steel-built greyhounds that theymay lay down their lives in France. 

In view of the monumental stupidity of her diplomacy Germany has foundit necessary to invent explanations. The form these have taken asregards America has been the attributing of fresh low motives. Herobject at first was to prove to the world at large how very littledifference America's participation in hostilities would make. WhenAmerica tacitly negatived this theory by the energy with which sheraised billions and mobilised her industries, Hun propagandists, byan ingenious casuistry, spread abroad the opinion that these mightypreparations were a colossal bluff which would redound to Germany'sadvantage. They said that President Wilson had bided his time so thathis country might strut as a belligerent for only the last six months, and so obtain a voice in the peace negotiations. He did not intendthat America should fight, and was only getting his armies ready thatthey might enforce peace when the Allies were exhausted and alreadycounting on Americans manning their trenches. Inasmuch as his countrywould neither have sacrificed nor died, he would be willing to giveGermany better terms; therefore America's apparent joining of theAllies was a camouflage which would turn out an advantage to Germany. This lie, with variations, has spread beyond the Rhine and gainedcurrency in certain of the neutral nations. 

Four days after President Wilson's declaration of war the Canadianscaptured Vimy Ridge. As the Hun prisoners came running like scaredrabbits through the shell-fire, we used to question them as toconditions on their side of the line. Almost the first question thatwas asked was, "What do you think about the United States?" By far themost frequent reply was, "We have submarines; the United States willmake no difference. " The answer was so often in the same formula thatit was evident the men had been schooled in the opinion. It was onlythe rare man of education who said, "It is bad--very bad; the worstmistake we have made. "

We, in the front-line, were very far from appreciating America'sdecision at its full value. For a year we had had the upper-hand ofthe Hun. To use the language of the trenches, we knew that we could goacross No Man's Land and "beat him up" any time we liked. To tell thetruth, many of us felt a little jealous that when, after two years ofpunishment, we had at last become top-dog, we should be called uponto share the glory of victory with soldiers of the eleventh hour. Webelieved that we were entirely capable of finishing the job withoutfurther aid. My own feeling, as an Englishman living in New York, wasmerely one of relief--that now, when war was ended, I should be ableto return to friends of whom I need not be ashamed. To what extentAmerica's earnestness has changed that sentiment is shown by theexpressed desire of every Canadian, that if Americans are anywhere onthe Western Front, they ought to be next to us in the line. "They areof our blood, " we say; "they will carry on our record. " Only thosewho have had the honour to serve with the Canadian Corps and know itsdogged adhesion to heroic traditions, can estimate the value of thiscompliment. 

I should say that in the eyes of the combatant, after PresidentWilson, Mr. Ford has done more than any other one man to interpret thespirit of his nation; our altered attitude towards him typifies ouraltered attitude towards America. Mr. Ford, the impassioned pacifist, sailing to Europe in his ark of peace, staggered our amazement. Mr. Ford, still the impassioned pacifist, whose aeroplane engineswill help to bomb the Hun's conscience into wakefulness, staggersour amazement but commands our admiration. We do not attempt tounderstand or reconcile his two extremes of conduct, but as fighterswe appreciate the courage of soul that made him "about turn" tosearch for his ideal in a painful direction when the old friendlydirection had failed. Here again it is significant that both withregard to individuals and nations, Germany's sternest foes arewar-haters--war-haters to such an extent that their principles attimes have almost shipwrecked their careers. In England our example isLloyd George. Throughout the Anglo-Saxon world the slumbering spiritof Cromwell's Ironsides has sprung to life, reminding the BritishEmpire and the United States of their common ancestry. After a hundredand forty years of drifting apart, we stand side by side like ourforefathers, the fighting pacifists at Naseby; like them, havingfailed to make men good with words, we will hew them into virtue withthe sword. 

At the end of June I went back to Blighty wounded. One of my mostvivid recollections of the time that followed is an early morningin July; it must have been among the first of the days that I wasallowed out of hospital. London was green and leafy. The tracks ofthe tramways shone like silver in the sunlight. There was a spirit ofrelease and immense good humour abroad. My course followed the riveron the south side, all a-dance with wind and little waves. As Icrossed the bridge at Westminster I became aware of an atmosphereof expectation. Subconsciously I must have been noticing it for sometime. Along Whitehall the pavements were lined with people, craningtheir necks, joking and jostling, each trying to better his place. Trafalgar Square was jammed with a dense mass of humanity, throughwhich mounted police pushed their way solemnly, like beadles in a vastunroofed cathedral. Then for the first time I noticed what I oughtto have noticed long before, that the Stars and Stripes wereexceptionally prevalent. Upon inquiry I was informed that this was theday on which the first of the American troops were to march. I pickedup with a young officer or the Dublin Fusiliers and together weforced our way down Pall Mall to the office of The Cecil Rhodes OxfordScholars' Foundation. From here we could watch the line of march fromTrafalgar Square to Marlborough House. While we waited, I scanned thegroup-photographs on the walls, some of which contained portraits ofGerman Rhodes Scholars with whom I had been acquainted. I rememberedhow they had always spent their vacations in England, assiduouslybicycling to the most unexpected places. In the light of laterdevelopments I thought I knew the reason. 

Suddenly, far away bands struck up. We thronged the windows, leaningout that we might miss nothing. Through the half mile of peoplethat stretched between us and the music a shudder of excitement wasrunning. Then came cheers--the deep-throated babel of men's voices andthe shrill staccato of women's. "They're coming, " some one cried; thenI saw them. 

I forget which regiment lead. The Coldstreams were there, the Scotchand Welsh Guards, the Irish Guards with their saffron kilts and greenribbons floating from their bag-pipes. A British regimental bandmarched ahead of each American regiment to do it honour. Down thesunlit canyon of Pall Mall they swung to the tremendous cheeringof the crowd. Quite respectable citizens had climbed lamp-posts andrailings, and were waving their hats. I caught the words that werebeing shouted, "Are we downhearted?" Then, in a fierce roar of denial, "No!" It was a wonderful ovation--far more wonderful than might havebeen expected from a people who had grown accustomed to the sight oftroops during the last three years. The genuineness of the welcomewas patent; it was the voice of England that was thundering along thepavements. 

I was anxious to see the quality of the men which America had sent. They drew near; then I saw them plainly. They were fine strappingchaps, broad of shoulder and proudly independent. They were notsoldiers yet; they were civilians who had been rushed into khaki. Their equipment was of every kind and sort and spoke eloquently of thehurry in which they had been brought together. That meant much to usin London-much more than if they had paraded with all the "spit andpolish" of the crack troops who led them. It meant to us that Americawas doing her bit at the earliest date possible. 

The other day, here in France, I met an officer of one of thosebattalions; he told me the Americans' side of the story. They wereexpert railroad troops, picked out of civilian life and packed offto England without any pretence at military training. When theywere informed that they were to be the leading feature in a Londonprocession, many of them even lacked uniforms. With true Americandemocracy of spirit, the officers stripped their rank-badges fromtheir spare tunics and lent them to the privates, who otherwise couldnot have marched. 

"I'm satisfied, " my friend said, "that there were Londoners so doggonehoarse that night that they couldn't so much as whisper. "

What impressed the men most of all was the King's friendly greeting ofthem at Buckingham Palace. There were few of them who had ever seena king before. "Friendly--that's the word! From the King downwardsthey were all so friendly. It was more like a family party than aprocession; and on the return journey, when we marched at ease, oldladies broke up our formations to kiss us. Nice and grandmotherly ofthem we thought. "

This, as I say, I learnt later in France; at the time I only knewthat the advance-guard of millions was marching. As I watched themmy eyes grew misty. Troops who have already fought no longer stirme; they have exchanged their dreams of glory for the reality ofsacrifice--they know to what they may look forward. But untried troopshave yet to be disillusioned; dreams of the pomp of war are still intheir eyes. They have not yet owned that they are merely going out todie obscurely. 

That day made history. It was then that England first vividly realisedthat America was actually standing shoulder to shoulder at her side. In making history it obliterated almost a century and a half ofmisunderstanding. I believe I am correct in saying that the lastforeign troops to march through London were the Hessians, who foughtagainst America in the Revolution, and that never before had foreignvolunteers marched through England save as conquerors. 

On my recovery I was sent home on sick leave and spent a month in NewYork. No one who has not been there since America joined the Alliescan at all realise the change that has taken place. It is a changeof soul, which no statistics of armaments can photograph. Americahas come into the war not only with her factories, her billionsand her man-power, but with her heart shining in her eyes. All herspread-eagleism is gone. All her aggressive industrial ruthlessnesshas vanished. With these has been lost her youthful contempt for oldercivilisations, whom she was apt to regard as decaying because theysent her emigrants. She has exchanged her prejudices for admirationand her grievances for kindness. Her "Hats off" attitude to France, England, Belgium and to every nation that has shed blood for the causewhich now is hers, was a thing which I had scarcely expected; it wasamazing. As an example of how this attitude is being interpretedinto action, school-histories throughout the United States are beingre-written, so that American children of the future may be trained infriendship for Great Britain, whereas formerly stress was laid on thehostilities of the eighteenth century which produced the separation. As a further example, many American boys, who for various reasons werenot accepted by the military authorities in their own country, havegone up to Canada to join. 

One such case is typical. Directly it became evident that America wasgoing into the war, one boy, with whom I am acquainted, made up hismind to be prepared to join. He persuaded his father to allow himto go to a Flying School to train as a pilot. Having obtained hiscertificate, he presented himself for enlistment and was turned downon the ground that he was lacking in a sense of equipoise. Being tooyoung for any other branch of the service, he persuaded his family toallow him to try his luck in Canada. Somehow, by hook or by crook, hehad to get into the war. The Royal Flying Corps accepted him with theproviso that he must take out his British naturalisation papers. This changing of nationality was a most bitter pill for his family toswallow. The boy had done his best to be a soldier; he was the eldestson, and there they would willingly have had the matter rest. Moreoverthey could compel the matter to rest there, for, being under age, hecould not change his nationality without his father's consent. It washis last desperate argument that turned the decision in his favour, "If it's a choice between my honour and my country, I choose my honourevery time. " So now he's a Britisher, learning "spit and polish" andexpecting to bring down a Hun almost any day. 

One noticed in almost the smallest details how deeply America hadcommitted her conscience to her new undertaking. While in Englandwe grumble about a food-control which is absolutely necessary to ourpreservation, America is voluntarily restricting herself not for herown sake, but for the sake of the Allies. They say that they arebeing "Hooverized, " thus coining a new word out of Mr. Hoover's name. Sometimes these Hooverish practices produce contrasts which are ratherquaint. I went to stay with a friend who had just completed as hishome an exact reproduction of a palace in Florence. Whoever wentshort, there was little that he could not afford. At our meals Inoticed that I was the only person who was served with butter andsugar, and enquired why. "It's all right for you, " I was told; "you'rea soldier; but if we eat butter and sugar, some of the Allies whoreally need them will have to go short. " A small illustration, but onethat is typical of a national, sacrificial, underlying thought. 

Later I met with many instances of the various forms in which thisthought is taking shape. I was in America when the Liberty War Loanwas so amazingly over-subscribed. I saw buses, their roofs crowdedwith bands and orators, doing the tour of street-corners. Every storeof any size, every railroad, every bank and financial corporation hadset for its employés and customers the ideal sum which it consideredthat they personally ought to subscribe. This ideal sum was recordedon the face of a clock, hung outside the building. As the grossamount actually collected increased, the hands were seen to revolve. Everything that eloquence and ingenuity could devise was done togather funds for the war. Big advertisers made a gift of theirnewspaper space to the nation. There were certain public-spirited menwho took up blocks of war-bonds, making the request that no interestshould be paid. You went to a theatre; during the interval actors andactresses sold war-certificates, harangued the audience and set theexample by their own purchases. 

When the Liberty War Loan had been raised, the Red Cross started itsgreat national drive, apportioning the necessary grand total among allthe cities from sea-board to sea-board, according to their wealth andpopulation. 

One heard endless stories of the variety of efforts being made. America had committed her heart to the Allies with an abandon which itis difficult to describe. Young society girls, who had been broughtup in luxury and protected from ugliness all their lives, were bandingthemselves into units, supplying the money, hiring the experts, andcoming over themselves to France to look after refugees' babies. Others were planning to do reconstruction work in the devastateddistricts immediately behind the battle-line. I met a number of theseenthusiasts before they sailed; I have since seen them at work inFrance. What struck me at the time was their rose-leaf frailness andutter unsuitability for the task. I could guess the romantic visionswhich tinted their souls to the colour of sacrifice; I also knewwhat refugees and devastated districts look like. I feared that thediscrepancy between the dream and the reality would doom them todisillusion. 

During the month that I was in America I visited several of the camps. The first draft army had been called. The first call gave the countryseven million men from which to select. I was surprised to find thatin many camps, before military training could commence, schools inEnglish had to be started to ensure the men's proper understanding ofcommands. This threw a new light on the difficulties Mr. Wilson hadhad to face in coming into the war. 

The men of the draft army represent as many nationalities, dialectsand race-prejudices as there are in Europe. They are a Europeexpatriated. During their residence in America a great many of themhave lived in communities where their own language is spoken, andtheir own customs are maintained. Frequently they have their ownnewspapers, which foster their national exclusiveness, and reflect thehatreds and affections of the country from which they emigrated. Theseconditions set up a barrier between them and current American opinionwhich it was difficult for the authorities at Washington to cross. Thepeople who represented neutral European nations naturally were anxiousfor the neutrality of America. The people who represented the CentralPowers naturally were against America siding with the Allies. The onlyway of re-directing their sympathies was by means of education andpropaganda; this took time, especially when they were separated fromthe truth by the stumbling block of language. For three years theyhad to be persuaded that they were no longer Poles, Swedes, Germans, Finns, Norwegians, but first and last Americans. I mention this here, in connection with the teaching of the draft army English, because itaffords one of the most vivid and comprehensible reasons for America'slong delay. 

What brought America into the war? I have often been asked thequestion; in answering it I always feel that I am giving only apartial answer. On the one hand there is the record of her two and ahalf years of procrastination, on the other the titanic upspringingof her warrior-spirit, which happened almost in a day. How can onereconcile the multitudinous pacific notes which issued from Washingtonwith the bugle-song to which the American boys march: "We've got fouryears to do this job. " The cleavage between the two attitudes is toosharp for the comprehension of other nations. 

The first answer which I shall give is entirely sane and will beaccepted by the rankest cynic. America came into the war at the momentshe realised that her own national life was endangered. Her leadersrealised this months before her masses could be persuaded. Thepolitical machinery of the United States is such that no Governmentwould dare to commence hostilities unless it was assured that itsdecision was the decision of the entire nation. That the Governmentmight have this assurance, Mr. Wilson had to maintain peace long afterthe intellect of America had declared for war, while he educatedthe cosmopolitan citizenship of his country into a knowledge of Hundesigns. The result was that he created the appearance of having beenpushed into hostilities by the weight of public opinion. 

For many months the Secret Service agents of the States, aided by theagents of other nations, were unravelling German plots and collectingdata of treachery so irrefutable that it had to be accepted. When allwas ready the first chapters of the story were divulged. They weredivulged almost in the form of a serial novel, so that the man whoread his paper to-day and said, "No doubt that isolated item is true, but it doesn't incriminate the entire German nation, " next day onopening his paper, found further proof and was forced to retreat tomore ingenious excuses. One day he was informed of Germany's abuse ofneutral embassies and mail-bags; the next of the submarine bases inMexico, prepared as a threat against American shipping; the day afterthat the whole infamous story of how Berlin had financed the MexicanRevolution. Germany's efforts to provoke an American-Japanese warleaked out, her attempts to spread disloyalty among German-Americans, her conspiracies for setting fire to factories and powder-plants, including the blowing up of bridges and the Welland Canal. Quietly, circumstantially, without rancour, the details were published ofthe criminal spider-web woven by the Dernburgs, Bernstorffs and VonPapens, accredited creatures of the Kaiser, who with Machiavelliansmiles had professed friendship for those whom their hands itched toslay and strangle. Gradually the camouflage of bovine geniality waslifted from the face of Germany and the dripping fangs of the BlondeBeast were displayed--the Minotaur countenance of one gluttedwith human flesh, weary with rape and rapine, but still tragicallyinsatiable and lusting for the new sensation of hounding America todestruction. 

I have not placed these revelations in their proper sequence; somewere made after war had been declared. They had the effect of changingevery decent American into a self-appointed detective. The weightof evidence put Germany's perfidy beyond dispute; clues to new andendless chains of machinations were discovered daily. The Hun had comeas a guest into America's house with only one intent--to do murder assoon as the lights were out. 

The anger which these disclosures produced knew no bounds. Hunapologists--the type of men who invariably believe that there is agood deal to be said on both sides--quickly faded into patriots. Therehad been those who had cried out for America's intervention from thefirst day that Belgium's neutrality had been violated. Many of these, losing patience, had either enlisted in Canada or were already inFrance on some errand of mercy. Their cry had reached Washington atfirst only as a whisper, very faint and distant. Little by little thatcry had swelled, till it became the nation's voice, angry, insistent, not to be disregarded. The most convinced humanitarian, together withthe sincerest admirer of the old-fashioned kindly Hans, had to join inthat cry or brand himself a traitor by his silence. 

America came into the war, as every country came, because her life wasthreatened. She is not fighting for France, Great Britain, Belgium, Serbia; she is fighting to save herself. I am glad to make thispoint because I have heard camouflaged Pro-Germans and thoughtlessmischief-makers discriminating between the Allies. "We are notfighting for Great Britain, " they say, "but for plucky France. " When Iwas in New York last October a firm stand was being made against thesediscriminators; some of them even found themselves in the hands of theSecret Service men. The feeling was growing that not to be Pro-Britishwas not to be Pro-Ally, and that not to be Pro-Ally was to beanti-American. This talk of fighting for somebody else is all loftytwaddle. America is fighting for America. While the statement isperfectly true, Americans have a right to resent it. 

In September, 1914, I crossed to Holland and was immensely disgustedat the interpretation of Great Britain's action which I found currentthere. I had supposed that Holland would be full of admiration; Ifound that she was nothing of the sort. We Britishers, in those earlydays, believed that we were magnanimous big brothers who could havekept out of the bloodshed, but preferred to die rather than see thesmaller nations bullied. Men certainly did not join Kitchener's mobbecause they believed that England's life was threatened. I don'tbelieve that any strong emotion of patriotism animated Canada in herearly efforts. The individual Briton donned the khaki because he wasdetermined to see fair play, and was damned if he would stand by aspectator while women and children were being butchered in Belgium. He felt that he had to do something to stop it. If he didn't, the samething would happen in Holland, then in Denmark, then in Norway. Therewas no end to it. When a mad dog starts running the best thing to dois to shoot it. 

But the Hollanders didn't agree with me at all. "You're fighting foryourselves, " they said. "You're not fighting to save us from beinginvaded; you're not fighting to prevent the Hun from conqueringFrance; you're not fighting to liberate Belgium. You're fightingbecause you know that if you let France be crushed, it will be yourturn next. "

Quite true--and absolutely unjust. The Hollander, whose householdswe were guarding, chose to interpret our motive at its most ignobleworth. Our men were receiving in their bodies the wounds which wouldhave been inflicted on Holland, had we elected to stand out. In thelight of subsequent events, all the world acknowledges that wewere and are fighting for our own households; but it is a gloriouscertainty that scarcely a Britisher who died in those early days hadthe least realisation of the fact. It was the chivalrous vision ofa generous Crusade that led our chaps from their firesides to thetrampled horror that is Flanders. They said farewell to their habitualaffections, and went out singing to their marriage with death. 

I suppose there has been no war that could not be interpretedultimately as a war of self-interest. The statesmen who make warsalways carefully reckon the probabilities of loss or gain; but thelads who kiss their sweethearts good-bye require reasons more vitalthan those of pounds, shillings and pence. Few men lay down theirlives from self-interested motives. Courage is a spiritual qualitywhich requires a spiritual inducement. Men do not set a price on theirchance of being blown to bits by shells. Even patriotism is too vagueto be a sufficient incentive. The justice of the cause to be foughtfor helps; it must be proportionate to the magnitude of the sacrificedemanded. But always an ideal is necessary--an ideal of liberty, indignation and mercy. If this is true of the men who go out to die, it is even more true of the women who send them, "Where there're no children left to pull The few scared, ragged flowers-- All that was ours, and, God, how beautiful! All, all that was once ours, Lies faceless, mouthless, mire to mire, So lost to all sweet semblance of desire That we, in those fields seeking desperately One face long-lost to love, one face that lies Only upon the breast of Memory, Would never find it--even the very blood Is stamped into the horror of the mud-- Something that mad men trample under-foot In the narrow trench--for these things are not men-- Things shapeless, sodden, mute Beneath the monstrous limber of the guns; Those things that loved us once... Those that were ours, but never ours again. "

For two and a half years the American press specialized on the terroraspect of the European hell. Every sensational, exceptional fact wasnot only chronicled, but widely circulated. The bodily and mentalhavoc that can be wrought by shell fire was exaggerated out of allproportion to reality. Photographs, almost criminal in type, werepublished to illustrate the brutal expression of men who had takenpart in bayonet charges. Lies were spread broadcast by supposedlyreputable persons, stating how soldiers had to be maddened withdrugs or alcohol before they would go over the top. Much of what wasrecorded was calculated to stagger the imagination and intimidate theheart. The reason for this was that the supposed eye-witnesses rarelysaw what they recorded. They had usually never been within ten milesof the front, for only combatants are allowed in the line. Theybrought civilian minds, undisciplined to the conquest of fear, totheir task; they never for one instant guessed the truly spiritualexaltation which gives wings to the soul of the man who fights in ajust cause. Squalor, depravity, brutalisation, death--moral, mentaland physical deformity were the rewards which the American publiclearned the fighting man gained in the trenches. They heard verylittle of the capacity for heroism, the eagerness for sacrifice, thegallant self-effacement which having honor for a companion taught. And yet, despite this frantic portrayal of terror, America decidedfor war. Her National Guard and Volunteers rolled up in millions, clamouring to cross the three thousand miles of water that they mightplace their lives in jeopardy. They were no more urged by motives ofself-interest than were the men who enlisted in Kitchener's mob. Itwasn't the threat to their national security that brought them; itwas the lure of an ideal--the fine white knightliness of men whosecompassion had been tormented and whose manhood had been challenged. When one says that America came into the war to save herself it isonly true of her statesmen; it is no more true of her masses than itwas true of the masses of Great Britain. 

So far, in my explanation as to why America came into the war, I havebeen scarcely more generous in the attributing of magnanimous motivesthan my Hollander. To all intents and purposes I have said, "Americais fighting because she knows that if the Allies are over-weakened orcrushed, it will be her turn next. " In discussing the matter withme, one of our Generals said, "I really don't see that it matters atuppenny cuss why she's fighting, so long as she helps us to lickthe Hun and does it quickly. " But it does matter. The reasons for herhaving taken up arms make all the difference to our respect for her. Here, then, are the reasons which I attribute: enthusiasm for theideals of the Allies; admiration for the persistency of their heroism;compassionate determination to borrow some of the wounds whichotherwise would be inflicted upon nations which have already suffered. A small band of pioneers in mercy are directly responsible forthis change of attitude in two and a half years from opportunisticneutrality to a reckless welcoming of martyrdom. 

At the opening of hostilities in 1914, America divided herself intotwo camps--the Pro-Allies and the others. "The others" consisted ofpeople of all shades of opinion and conviction: the anti-British, anti-French, the pro-German, the anti-war and the merely neutral, someof whom set feverishly to work to make a tradesman's advantage out ofEurope's misfortune. A great traffic sprang up in the manufacture ofwar materials. Almost all of these went to the Allies, owing to thefact that Britain controlled the seas. Whether they would not havebeen sold just as readily to Germany, had that been possible, is amatter open to question. In any case, the camp of "The Others" wasoverwhelmingly in the majority. 

One by one, and in little protesting bands, the friends of the Alliesslipped overseas bound on self-imposed, sacrificial quests. They wentlike knight-errants to the rescue; while others suffered, their ownease was intolerable. The women, whom they left, formed themselvesinto groups for the manufacture of the munitions of mercy. There weremen like Alan Seeger, who chanced to be in Europe when war broke out;many of these joined up with the nearest fighting units. "I havea rendezvous with death, " were Alan Seeger's last words as he fellmortally wounded between the French and German trenches. His voicewas the voice of thousands who had pledged themselves to keep thatrendezvous in the company of Britishers, Belgians and Frenchmen, longbefore their country had dreamt of committing herself. Some of thesefriends of the Allies chose the Ford Ambulance, others positions inthe Commission for the Relief of Belgium, and yet others the moreforceful sympathy of the bayonet as a means of expressing their wrath. Soon, through the heart of France, with the tricolor and the Stars andStripes flying at either end, "le train Américaine" was seen hurrying, carrying its scarlet burden. This sight could hardly be called neutralunless a similar sight could be seen in Germany. It could not. The Commission for the Relief of Belgium was actually anythingbut neutral; to minister to the results of brutality is tacitly tocondemn. 

At Neuilly-sur-Seine the American Ambulance Hospital sprang up. It undertook the most grievous cases, making a specialty of facialmutilations. American girls performed the nursing of these pitifulhuman wrecks. Increasingly the crusader spirit was finding a gallantresponse in the hearts of America's girlhood. By the time thatPresident Wilson flung his challenge, eighty-six war relieforganizations were operating in France. In very many cases theseorganizations only represented a hundredth part of the actualpersonnel working; the other ninety-nine hundredths were in theStates, rolling bandages, shredding oakum, slitting linen, makingdressings. Long before April, 1917, American college boys had won aname by their devotion in forcing their ambulances over shell tornroads on every part of the French Front, but, perhaps, with peculiarheroism at Verdun. Already the American Flying Squadron has earneda veteran's reputation for its daring. The report of the sacrificialcourage of these pioneers had travelled to every State in the Union;their example had stirred, shamed and educated the nation. It is tothese knight-errants--very many of them boys and girls in years--tothe Mrs. Whartons, the Alan Seegers, the Hoovers and the Thaws that Iattribute America's eager acceptance of Calvary, when at last itwas offered to her by her Statesmen. From an anguished horror tobe repelled, war had become a spiritual Eldorado in whose heart layhidden the treasure-trove of national honor. 

The individual American soldier is inspired by just as altruisticmotives as his brother-Britisher. Compassion, indignation, love ofjustice, the determination to see right conquer are his incentives. You can make a man a conscript, drill him, dress him in uniform, butyou cannot force him to face up to four years to do his job unless theideals were there beforehand. I have seen American troop-ships comeinto the dock with ten thousand men singing, "Good-bye, Liza, I'm going to smash the Kaiser. "

I have been present when packed audiences have gone mad in reiteratingthe American equivalent for _Tipperary_, with its brave promise, "We'll be over, We're coming over, And we won't be back till it's over, over there. "

But nothing I have heard so well expresses the cold anger of theAmerican fighting-man as these words which they chant to theirbugle-march, "We've got four years to do this job. "

II

WAR AS A JOB

I have been so fortunate as to be able to watch three separate nationsfacing up to the splendour of Armageddon--England, France, America. The spirit of each was different. I arrived in England from abroad theweek after war had been declared. There was a new vitality in theair, a suppressed excitement, a spirit of youth and--it soundsridiculous--of opportunity. The England I had left had been wont togo about with a puckered forehead; she was a victim ofself-disparagement. She was like a mother who had borne too manychildren and was at her wits' end to know how to feed or manage them. They were getting beyond her control. Since the Boer War there hadbeen a growing tendency in the Press to under-rate all English effortand to over-praise to England's discredit the superior pushfulnessof other nations. This melancholy nagging which had for its constanttext, "Wake up, John Bull, " had produced the hallucination that therewas something vitally the matter with the Mother Country. No oneseemed to have diagnosed her complaint, but those of us who grew wearyof being told that we were behind the times, took prolonged trips tomore cheery quarters of the globe. It is the Englishman's privilege torun himself down; he usually does it with his tongue in his cheek. Butfor the ten years preceding the outbreak of hostilities, the prophetsof Fleet Street certainly carried their privilege beyond a joke. Pessimism was no longer an amusing pose; it was becoming a habit. 

One week of the iron tonic of war had changed all that. The atmospherewas as different as the lowlands from the Alps; it was an atmosphereof devil-may-care assurance and adventurous manhood. Every one had thesummer look of a boat-race crowd when the Leander is to be pulled offat Henley. In comparing the new England with the old, I should havesaid that every one now had the comfortable certainty that he waswanted--that he had a future and something to live for. But it wasn'tthe something to live for that accounted for this gay alertness; itwas the sure foreknowledge of each least important man that he hadsomething worth dying for at last. 

A strange and magnificent way of answering misfortune's challenge--anElizabethan way, the knack of which we believed we had lost! "Businessas usual" was written across our doorways. It sounded callous andunheeding, but at night the lads who had written it there, tiptoed outand stole across the Channel, scarcely whispering for fear they shouldbreak our hearts by their going. 

Death may be regarded as a funeral or as a Columbus expedition toworlds unknown--it may be seized upon as an opportunity for weepingor for a display of courage. From the first day in her choice Englandnever hesitated; like a boy set free from school, she dashed out tomeet her danger with laughter. Her high spirits have never failed her. Her cavalry charge with hunting-calls upon their lips. Her Tommies goover the top humming music-hall ditties. The Hun is still "jolly oldFritz. " The slaughter is still "a nice little war. " Death is still"the early door. " The mud-soaked "old Bills" of the trenches, cheerfully ignoring vermin, rain and shell fire, continue to wind uptheir epistles with, "Hoping this finds you in the pink, as it leavesme at present. " They are always in the pink for epistolary purposes, whatever the strafing or the weather. That's England; at all costs, she has to be a sportsman. I wonder she doesn't write on the crossesabove her dead, "_Yours in the pink:_ _a British soldier, killed inaction_. " England is in the pink for the duration of the war. 

The Frenchman cannot understand us, and I don't blame him. Our highspirits impress him as untimely and indecent. War for him is nota sport. How could it be, with his homesteads ravaged, his citiesflattened, his women violated, his populations prisoners in occupiedterritories? For him war is a martyrdom which he embraces with afierce gladness. His spirit is well illustrated by an incident thathappened the other day in Paris. A descendant of Racine, a well-knownfigure at the opera, was travelling in the Metro when he spotted apoilu with a string of ten medals on his breast. The old aristocratwent over to the soldier and apologised for speaking to him. "But, " hesaid, "I have never seen any poilu with so many decorations. You mustbe of the very bravest. "

"That is nothing, " the man replied sombrely; "before they kill me Ishall have won many more. This I earned in revenge for my wife, whowas brutally murdered. And this and this and this for my daughters whowere ravished. And these others--they are for my sons who are now nomore. "

"My friend, if you will let me, I should like to embrace you. " Andthere, in the sight of all the passengers, the old habitué of theopera and the common soldier kissed each other. The one satisfactionthat the French blind have is in counting the number of Boche theyhave slaughtered. "In that raid ten of us killed fifty, " one will say;"the memory makes me very happy. "

Curiously enough the outrage that makes the Frenchman most revengefulis not the murder of his family or the defilement of his women, butthe wilful killing of his land and orchards. The land gave birth toall his flesh and blood; when his farm is laid waste wilfully, itis as though the mother of all his generations was violated. Thisaccounts for the indomitable way in which the peasants insist onstaying on in their houses under shell-fire, refusing to depart tillthey are forcibly turned out. 

We in England, still less in America, have never approached theloathing which is felt for the Boche in France. Men spit as they utterhis name, as though the very word was foul in the mouth. 

In the face of all that they have suffered, I do not wonder that theFrench misunderstand the easy good-humour with which we English goout to die. In their eyes and with the continual throbbing oftheir wounds, this war is an occasion for neither good-humour norsportsmanship, but for the wrath of a Hebrew Jehovah, which only blowscan appease or make articulate. If every weapon were taken from theirhands and all their young men were dead, with naked fists those whowere left would smite--smite and smite. It is fitting that they shouldfeel this way, seeing themselves as they do perpetually frescoedagainst the sky-line of sacrifice; but I am glad that our English boyscan laugh while they die. 

In trying to explain the change I found in England after war hadcommenced, I mentioned Henley and the boat-race crowds. I don't thinkit was a change; it was only a bringing to the surface of somethingthat had been there always. Some years ago I was at Henley when theBelgians carried off the Leander Cup from the most crack crew thatEngland could bring together. Evening after evening through theRegatta week the fear had been growing that we should lose, yet noneof that fear was reflected in our attitude towards our Belgian guests. Each evening as they came up the last stretch of river, leading bylengths and knocking another contestant out, the spectators cheeredthem madly. Their method of rowing smashed all our traditions; itwasn't correct form; it wasn't anything. It ought to have made oneangry. But these chaps were game; they were winning. "Let's playfair, " said the river; so they cheered them. On the last night whenthey beat Leander, looking fresh as paint, leading by a length andtaking the championship out of England, you would never have guessedby the flicker of an eyelash that it wasn't the most happy conclusionof a good week's sport for every oarsman present. 

It's the same spirit essentially that England is showing to-day. Shecheers the winner. She trusts in her strength for another day. Sheinsists on playing fair. She considers it bad manners to lose one'stemper. She despises to hate back. She has carried this spirit so farthat if you enter the college chapels of Oxford to-day, you will findinscribed on memorial tablets to the fallen not only the names ofBritishers, but also the names of German Rhodes Scholars, who diedfighting for their country against the men who were once theirfriends. Generosity, justice, disdain of animosity-these virtues werelearnt on the playing-fields and race-courses. England knows theirvalue; she treats war as a sport because so she will fight better. Forher that approach to adversity is normal. 

With us war is a sport. With the French it is a martyrdom. But withthe Americans it is a job. "We've got four years to do this job. We'vegot four years to do this job, " as the American soldiers chant. Ithink in these three attitudes towards war as a martyrdom, as sportand as a job, you get reflected the three gradations of distanceby which each nation is divided from the trenches. France had hertribulation thrust upon her. She was attacked; she had no option. England, separated by the Channel, could have restrained the weightof her strength, biding her time. She had her moment of choice, butrushed to the rescue the moment the first Hun bayonet gleamed acrossthe Belgian threshold. America, fortified by the Atlantic, could notbelieve that her peace was in any way assailed. The idea seemedtoo madly far-fetched. At first she refused to realise that thisapportioning of a continent three thousand miles distant from Germanywas anything but a pipe-dream of diplomats in their dotage. It wasinconceivable that it could be the practical and achievable cunning ofmilitary bullies and strategists. The truth dawned too slowly for herto display any vivid burst of anger. "It isn't true, " she said. Andthen, "It seems incredible. " And lastly, "What infernal impertinence!"

It was the infernal impertinence of Germany's schemes fortransatlantic plunder that roused the average American. It awoke inhim a terrible, calm anger--a feeling that some one must be punished. It was as though he broke off suddenly in what he was doing andcommenced rolling up his shirt-sleeves. There was a grim, surpriseddetermination about his quietness, which had not been seen in anyother belligerent nation. France became consciously and tragicallyheroic when war commenced. England became unwontedly cheerful becauselife was moving on grander levels. In America there was no outwardchange. The old habit of feverish industry still persisted, but wasintensified and applied in unselfish directions. 

What has impressed me most in my tour of the American activitiesin France is the businesslike relentlessness of the preparations. Everything is being done on a titanic scale and everything is beingdone to last. The ports, the railroads, the plants that are beingconstructed will still be standing a hundred years from now. There'sno "Home for Christmas" optimism about America's method of making war. One would think she was expecting to be still fighting when all thepresent generation is dead. She is investing billions of dollars inwhat can only be regarded as permanent improvements. The handsomenessof her spirit is illustrated by the fact that she has no understandingwith the French for reimbursement. 

In sharp contrast with this handsomeness of spirit is the iciness ofher purpose as regards the Boche. I heard no hatred of the individualGerman--only the deep conviction that Prussianism must be crushed atall costs. The American does not speak of "Poor old Fritz" as we doon our British Front. He's too logical to be sorry for his enemy. His attitude is too sternly impersonal for him to be moved by anyemotions, whether of detestation or charity, as regards the Hun. Allhe knows is that a Frankenstein machinery has been set in motion forthe destruction of the world; to counteract it he is creating anotherpiece of machinery. He has set about his job in just the same spiritthat he set about overcoming the difficulties of the Panama Canal. He has been used to overcoming the obstinacies of Nature; the humanobstinacies of his new task intrigue him. I believe that, just asin peace times big business was his romance and the wealth whichhe gained from it was often incidental, so in France the jobas a job impels him, quite apart from its heroic object. Afterall, smashing the Pan-Germanic Combine is only another form oftrust-busting--trust-busting with aeroplanes and guns instead of withlaw and ledgers. 

There is something almost terrifying to me about this quietcollectedness--this Pierpont Morgan touch of sphinxlike aloofnessfrom either malice or mercy. Just as America once said, "Businessis business" and formed her world-combines, collaring monopolies andallowing the individual to survive only by virtue of belonging tothe fittest, so now she is saying, "War is war"--something to beaccomplished with as little regard to landscapes as blasting arailroad across a continent. 

For the first time in the history of this war Germany is "up against"a nation which is going to fight her in her own spirit, borrowingher own methods. This statement needs explaining; its truth was firstbrought to my attention at American General Headquarters. The Frenchattitude towards the war is utterly personal; it is bayonet tobayonet. It depends on the unflinching courage of every individualFrench man and woman. The English attitude is that of theknight-errant, seeking high adventures and welcoming death in a noblecause. But the German attitude disregards the individual and knowsnothing of gallantry. It lacks utterly the spiritual elation whichmade the strength of the French at Verdun and of the English at Mons. The German attitude is that of a soulless organisation, invented forone purpose--profitable conquest. War for the Hun is not a final anddreaded atonement for the restoring of justice to the world; it isa business undertaking which, as he is fond of telling us, has neverfailed to yield him good interest on his capital. I have seen agood deal of the capital he has invested in the battlefields he haslost--men smashed to pulp, bruised by shells out of resemblance toanything human, the breeding place of flies and pestilence, nolonger the homes of loyalties and affections. I cannot conceive whatpercentage of returns can be said to compensate for the agony expendedon such indecent Golgothas. However, the Hun has assured us that itpays him; he flatters himself that he is a first-class business man. 

But so does the American, and he knows the game from more points ofview. For years he has patterned his schools and colleges on Germaneducational methods. What applies to his civilian centres of learningapplies to his military as well. German text-books gave the basis forall American military thought. American officers have been trained inGerman strategy just as thoroughly as if they had lived in Potsdam. At the start of the war many of them were in the field with the Germanarmies as observers. They are able to synchronise their thoughts withthe thoughts of their German enemies and at the same time to takeadvantage of all that the Allies can teach them. 

"War is a business, " the Germans have said. The Americans, with anideal shining in their eyes, have replied, "Very well. We didn't wantto fight you; but now that you have forced us, we will fight you onyour own terms. We will make war on you as a business, for we arebusinessmen. We will crush you coldly, dispassionately, withoutrancour, without mercy till we have proved to you that war is notprofitable business, but hell. "

The American, as I have met him in France, has not changed one iotafrom the man that he was in New York or Chicago. He has transplantedhimself untheatrically to the scenes of battlefields and set himselfundisturbedly to the task of dying. There is an amazing normalityabout him. You find him in towns, ancient with châteaux and wonderfulwith age; he is absolutely himself, keenly efficient and irreverentlymodern. Everywhere, from the Bay of Biscay to the Swiss border, fromthe Mediterranean to the English Channel, you see the lean figure andthe slouch hat of the U. S. A. Soldier. He is invariably well-conducted, almost always alone and usually gravely absorbed in himself. Theexcessive gravity of the American in khaki has astonished the men ofthe other armies who feel that, life being uncertain, it is well tomake as genial a use of it as possible while it lasts. The soldierfrom the U. S. A. Seems to stand always restless, alert, alone, listening--waiting for the call to come. He doesn't sink into thelandscape the way other troops have done. His impatience picks himout--the impatience of a man in France solely for one purpose. I haveseen him thus a thousand times, standing at street-corners, in thecrowd but not of it, remarkable to every one but himself. Every manand officer I have spoken to has just one thing to say about what ishappening inside him, "Let them take off my khaki and send me backto America, or else hurry me into the trenches. I came here to getstarted on this job; the waiting makes me tired. "

"Let me get into the trenches, " that was the cry of the Americansoldier that I heard on every hand. Having witnessed his eagerness, cleanness and intensity, I ask no more questions as to how he willacquit himself. 

I have presented him as an extremely practical person, but no Americanthat I ever met was solely practical. If you watch him closely youwill always find that he is doing practical things for an idealisticend. The American who accumulates a fortune to himself, whether it bethrough corralling railroads, controlling industries, developing minesor establishing a chain of dry-goods stores, doesn't do it for themoney only, but because he finds in business the poetry of creating, manipulating, evolving--the exhilaration and adventure of swayingpower. And so there came a day when I caught my American soldierdreaming and off his guard. 

All day I had been motoring through high uplands. It was a part ofFrance with which I was totally unfamiliar. A thin mist was driftingacross the country, getting lost in valleys where it piled up intofleecy mounds, getting caught in tree-tops where it fluttered liketattered banners. Every now and then, with the suddenness of ourapproach, we would startle an aged shepherd, muffled and pensive asan Arab, strolling slowly across moorlands, followed closely by thesentinel goats which led his flock. The day had been strangely mystic. Time seemed a mood. I had ceased to trouble about where I was going;that I knew my ultimate destination was sufficient. The way that ledto it, which I had never seen before, should never see again perhaps, and through which I travelled at the rate of an express, seemed afairy non-existent Hollow Land. Landscapes grew blurred with the speedof our passage. They loomed up on us like waves, stayed with us for asecond and vanished. The staff-officer, who was my conductor, drowsedon his seat beside the driver. He had wearied himself in the morning, taking me now here to see an American Division putting on a manoeuvre, now there to where the artillery were practising, then to anothervalley where machine-guns tapped like thousands of busy typewritersworking on death's manuscript. After that had come bayonet chargesagainst dummies, rifle-ranges and trench-digging--all the industriouspretence at slaughter which prefaces the astounding actuality. Wewere far away from all that now; the brown figures had melted into thebrownness of the hills. There might have been no war. Perhaps therewasn't. Never was there a world more grey and quiet. I grew sleepy. My head nodded. I opened my eyes, pulled myself together and againnodded. The roar of the engine was soothing. The rush of wind layheavy against my eye-lids. It seemed odd that I should be here andnot in the trenches. When I was in the line I had often made up life'sdeficiencies by imagining, imagining.... Perhaps I was really inthe line now. I wouldn't wake up to find out. That would comepresently--it always had. 

We were slowing down. I opened my eyes lazily. No, we weren'tstopping--only going through a village. What a quaint grey villageit was--worth looking at if I wasn't so tired. I was on the pointof drowsing off again when I caught sight of a word written on asign-board, _Domrémy_. My brain cleared. I sat up with a jerk. It wasmagic that I should find myself here without warning--at Domrémy, theBethlehem of warrior-woman's mercy. I had dreamed from boyhood of thisplace as a legend--a memory of white chivalry to be found on no map, a record of beauty as utterly submerged as the lost land of Lyonesse. Hauntingly the words came back, "Who is this that cometh from Domrémy?Who is she in bloody coronation robes from Rheims? Who is she thatcometh with blackened flesh from walking in the furnaces of Rouen?This is she, the shepherd girl.... " All about me on the little hillswere the woodlands through which she must have led her sheep andwandered with her heavenly visions. 

We had come to a bend in the village street. Where the road took aturn stood an aged church; nestling beside it in a little garden wasa grey, semi-fortified mediæval dwelling. The garden was surrounded byhigh spiked railings, planted on a low stone wall. Sitting on the wallbeside the entrance was an American soldier. He had a small Frenchchild on either knee--one arm about each of them; thus embarrassedhe was doing his patient best to roll a Bull Durham cigarette. Thechildren were vividly interested; they laughed up into the soldier'sface. One of them was a boy, the other a girl. The long golden curlsof the girl brushed against the soldier's cheek. The three heads benttogether, almost touching. The scene was timelessly human, despite themodernity of the khaki. Joan of Arc might have been that little girl. 

I stopped the driver, got out and approached the group. The soldierjumped to attention and saluted. In answer to my question, he said, "Yes, this is where she lived. That's her house--that grey cottagewith scarcely any windows. Bastien le Page could never have seen it;it isn't a bit like his picture in the Metropolitan Gallery. "

He spoke in a curiously intimate way as if he had known Joan of Arcand had spoken with her there--as if she had only just departed. It was odd to reflect that America had still lain hidden behind theAtlantic when Joan walked the world. 

We entered the gate into the garden, the American soldier, thechildren and I together. The little girl, with that wistful confidencethat all French children show for men in khaki, slipped her grubbylittle paw into my hand. I expect Joan was often grubby like that. 

Brown winter leaves strewed the path. The grass was bleached and dead. At our approach an old sheep-dog rattled his chain and looked out ofhis kennel. He was shaggy and matted with years. His bark was soweak that it broke in the middle. He was a Rip Van Winkle of asheep-dog--the kind of dog you would picture in a fairy-tale. Onecouldn't help feeling that he had accompanied the shepherd girl andhad kept the flock from straying while she spoke with her visions. All those centuries ago he had seen her ride away--ride away to saveFrance--and she had not come back. All through the centuries he hadwaited; at every footstep on the path he had come hopefully out fromhis kennel, wagging his tail and barking ever more weakly. He wouldnot believe that she was dead. And it was difficult to believe it inthat ancient quiet. If ever France needed her, it was now. 

Across my memory flashed the words of a dreamer, prophetic in thelight of recent events, "Daughter of Domrémy, when the gratitude ofthy king shall awaken, thou wilt be sleeping the sleep of the dead. Call her, King of France, but she will not hear thee. Cite her by theapparitors to come and receive a robe of honour, but she will not befound. When the thunders of universal France, as even yet may happen, shall proclaim the grandeur of the poor shepherd girl that gave up herall for her country, thy ear, young shepherd girl, will have been deaffive centuries. "

Quite illogically it seemed to me that January evening that thisAmerican soldier was the symbol of the power that had come in herstead. 

The barking of the dog had awakened a bowed old Mother Hubbard lady. She opened the door of her diminutive castle and peered across thethreshold, jingling her keys. 

Would we come in? Ah, Monsieur from America was there! He was alwaysthere when he was not training, playing with the children and rollingcigarettes. And Monsieur, the English officer, perhaps he did notknow that she was descended from Joan's family. Oh, yes, there was nomistake about it; that was why she had been made custodian. She mustlight the lamp. There! That was better. There was not much to see, butif we would follow.... 

We stepped down into a flagged room like a cellar--cold, asceticand bare. There was a big open fire-place, with a chimney hooded bymassive masonry and blackened by the fires of immemorial winters. Thiswas where Joan's parents had lived. She had probably been born here. The picture that formed in my mind was not of Joan, but that otherwoman unknown to history--her mother, who after Joan had left thevillage and rumours of her battles and banquets drifted back, musthave sat there staring into the blazing logs, her peasant's handsfolded in her lap, brooding, wondering, hoping, fearing--fearing asthe mothers of soldiers have throughout the ages. 

And this was Joan's brother's room--a cheerless place of hewn stone. What kind of a man could he have been? What were his reflections ashe went about his farm-work and thought of his sister at the head ofarmies? Was he merely a lout or something worse--the prototype ofour Conscientious Objector: a coward who disguised his cowardice withmoral scruples?

And this was Joan's room--a cell, with a narrow slit at the endthrough which one gained a glimpse of the church. Before this slit shehad often knelt while the angels drifted from the belfry like dovesto peer in on her. The place was sacred. How many nights had she spenthere with girlish folded hands, her face ecstatic, the cold eatinginto her tender body? I see her blue for lack of charity, forgotten, unloved, neglected--the symbol of misunderstanding and loneliness. They told her she was mad. She was a laughing stock in the village. The world could find nothing better for her to do than driving sheepthrough the bitter woodlands; but God found time to send his angels. Yes, she was mad--mad as Christ was in Galilee--mad enough to saveothers when she could not save herself. How nearly the sacrifice ofthis most child-like of women parallels the sacrifice of the mostGod-like of men! Both were born in a shepherd community; both forewentthe humanity of love and parenthood; both gave up their lives that theworld might be better; both were royally apparelled in mockery; bothfollowed their visions; for each the price of following was death. She, too, was despised and rejected; as a sheep before her shearers isdumb, so she opened not her mouth. 

That is all there is to see at Domrémy; three starveling, stone-pavedrooms, a crumbling church, a garden full of dead leaves, an olddog growing mangy in his kennel and the wind-swept cathedral of thewoodlands. The soul of France was born there in the humble body of apeasant-girl; yes, and more than the soul of France--the gallantry ofall womanhood. God must be fond of His peasants; I think they will beHis aristocracy in Heaven. 

The old lady led us out of the house. There was one more thing shewished to show us. The sunset light was still in the tree-tops, but her eyes were dim; she thought that night had already gathered. Holding her lamp above her head, she pointed to a statue in a nicheabove the doorway. It had been placed there by order of the King ofFrance after Joan was dead. But it wasn't so much the statue that shewanted us to look at; it was the mutilations that were upon it. Shewas filled with a great trembling of indignation. "Yes, gaze your fillupon it, Messieurs, " she said; "it was _les Boches_ did that. Theywere here in 1870. To others she may be a saint, but to _them_--Bah!"and she spat, "a woman is less than a woman always. "

When we turned to go she was still cursing _les Boches_ beneath herbreath, tremblingly holding up the lamp above her head that she mightforget nothing of their defilement. The old dog rattled his chain aswe passed; he knew us now and did not trouble to come out. The deadleaves whispered beneath our tread. 

At the gate we halted. I turned to my American soldier. "How longbefore you go into the line?"

He was carrying the little French girl in his arms. As he glancedup to answer, his face caught the sunset. "Soon now. The sooner, thebetter. She ... , " and I knew he meant no living woman. "This place ... I don't know how to express it. But everything here makes you wantto fight, --makes you ashamed of standing idle. If she could dothat--well, I guess that I.... "

He made no attempt to fill his eloquent silences; and so I left. Asthe car gathered speed, plunging into the pastoral solitudes, I lookedback. The last sight I had of Domrémy was a grey little garden, madesacred by the centuries, and an American soldier standing with aFrench child in his arms, her golden hair lying thickly against hisneck. 

On the surface the American is unemotionally practical, but at hearthe is a dreamer, first, last and always. If the Americans have meritedany criticism in France, it is owing to the vastness of their plans;the tremendous dream of their preparations postpones the beginning ofthe reality. Their mistake, if they have made a mistake, is an errorof generosity. They are building with a view to flinging millionsinto the line when thousands a little earlier would be of superlativeadvantage. They had the choice of dribbling their men over in smallcontingents or of waiting till they could put a fighting-force intothe field so overwhelming in equipment and numbers that its weightwould be decisive. They were urged to learn wisdom from England'sexample and not to waste their strength by putting men into thetrenches in a hurry before they were properly trained. England wascompelled to adopt this chivalrous folly by the crying need of France. It looked in the Spring of 1917, before Russia had broken down or thepressure on the Italian front had become so menacing, as though theAllies could afford to ask America to conduct her war on the linesof big business. America jumped at the chance--big business being thetask to which her national genius was best suited. If her Allies couldhold on long enough, she would build her fleet and appear with an armyof millions that would bring the war to a rapid end. Her rôle was tobe that of the toreador in the European bull-fight. 

But big business takes time and usually loses money at the start. In the light of recent developments, we would rather have thebird-in-the-hand of 300, 000 Americans actually fighting than thepromise of a host a year from now. People at home in America realisedthis in January. They were so afraid that their Allies might feeldisappointed. They were so keen to achieve tangible results in the warthat they grew impatient with the long delay. They weren't interestedin seeing other nations going over the top--the same nations who hadbeen over so many times; they wanted to see their sons and brothers atonce given the opportunity to share the wounds and the danger. Theirattitude was Spartan and splendid; they demanded a curtailment oftheir respite that they might find themselves afloat on the crimsontide. The cry of the civilians in America was identical with that oftheir men in France. "Let them take off our khaki or else hurry usinto the trenches. We want to get started. This waiting makes ustired. "

And the civilians in America had earned a right to make their demand. Industrially, financially, philanthropically, from every point of viewthey had sacrificed and played the game, both by the Allies andtheir army. When they, as civilians, had been so willing to wearthe stigmata of sacrifice, they were jealous lest their fighting menshould be baulked of their chance of making those sacrifices appearworth while. 

There have been many accusations in the States with regard tothe supposed breakdown of their military organization inFrance--accusations inspired by generosity towards the Allies. Fromwhat I have seen, and I have been given liberal opportunities to seeeverything, I do not think that those accusations are justified. Asa combatant of another nation, I have my standards of comparison bywhich to judge and I frankly state that I was amazed with the progressthat had been made. It is a progress based on a huge scale andtherefore less impressive to the layman than if the scale had beenless ambitious. What I saw were the foundations of an organisationwhich can be expanded to handle a fighting-machine which staggersthe imagination. What the layman expects to see are Hun trophies andAmericans coming out of the line on stretchers. He will see all that, if he waits long enough, for the American military hospitals in Franceare being erected to accommodate 200, 000 wounded. 

Unfounded optimisms, which under no possible circumstances could everhave been realised, are responsible for the disappointment felt inAmerica. Inasmuch as these optimisms were widely accepted in Englandand France, civilian America's disappointment will be shared bythe Allies, unless some hint of the truth is told as to what may beexpected and what great preparations are under construction. It wasgenerally believed that by the spring of 1918 America would havehalf a million men in the trenches and as many more behind the lines, training to become reinforcements. People who spoke this way couldnever have seen a hundred thousand men or have stopped to considerwhat transport would be required to maintain them at a distance ofmore than three thousand miles from their base. It was also believedthat by the April of 1918, one year after the declaring of war, America would have manufactured ten thousand planes, standardised alltheir parts, trained the requisite number of observers and pilots, and would have them flying over the Hun lines. Such beliefs were puremoonshine, incapable of accomplishment; but there are facts to be toldwhich are highly honourable. 

So far I have tried to give a glimpse of America's fighting spirit infacing up to her job; now, in as far as it is allowed, I want to givea sketch of her supreme earnestness as proved by what she has alreadyachieved in France. The earnestness of her civilians should requireno further proof than the readiness with which they accepted nationalconscription within a few hours of entering the war--a revolutionisingdeparture which it took England two years of fighting even tocontemplate, and which can hardly be said to be in full operation yet, so long as conscientious objectors are allowed to air their so-calledconsciences. In America the conscientious objector is not regarded; heis listened to as only one of two things--a deserter or a traitor. Theearnestness of America's fighting man requires no proving; his onlygrievance is that he is not in the trenches. Yet so long as the weightof America is not felt to be turning the balance dramatically in ourfavour, the earnestness of America will be open to challenge both byAmericans and by the Allies. What I saw in France in the early monthsof this year has filled me with unbounded optimism. I feel the elatedcertainty, as never before even in the moment of the most successfulattack, that the Hun's fate is sealed. What is more, I have groundsfor believing that he knows it--knows that the collapse of Russia willprofit him nothing because he cannot withstand the avalanche of menfrom America. Already he hears them, as I have seen them, training intheir camps from the Pacific to the Atlantic, racing across theOcean in their grey transports, marching along the dusty roads of twocontinents, a procession locust-like in multitude, stretching halfabout the world, marching and singing indomitably, "We've got fouryears to do this job. " From behind the Rhine he has caught theirsinging; it grows ever nearer, stronger. It will take time for thatavalanche to pyramid on the Western Front; but when it has piled up, it will rush forward, fall on him and crush him. He knows somethingelse, which fills him with a still more dire sense of calamity--thatbecause America's honour has been jeopardised, of all the nationsnow fighting she will be the last to lay down her arms. She has givenherself four years to do her job; when her job is ended, it will bewith Prussianism as it was with Jezebel, "They that went to bury herfound no more of her than the skull and the feet and the palms of herhands. And her carcase was as dung upon the face of the field, so thatmen should not say, 'This is Jezebel. '"

As an example of what America is accomplishing, I will take a sampleport in France. It was of tenth-rate importance, little more thana harbour for coastwise vessels and ocean-going tramps when theAmericans took it over; by the time they have finished, it will beamong the first ports of Europe. It is only one of several that theyare at present enlarging and constructing. The work already completedhas been done in the main under the direction of the engineers whomarched through London in the July of last year. I visited the port inJanuary, so some idea can be gained of how much has been achieved in ahandful of months. 

The original French town still has the aspect of a prosperousfishing-village. There are two main streets with shops on them; thereis one out-of-date hotel; there are a few modern dwellings facingthe sea. For the rest, the town consists of cottages, alleys andopen spaces where the nets were once spread to dry. To-day in a vastcircle, as far as eye can reach, a city of huts has grown up. In thosehuts live men of many nations, Americans, French, German prisoners, negroes. They are all engaged in the stupendous task of construction. The capacity of the harbour basin is being multiplied fifty times, theberthing capacity trebled, the unloading facilities multiplied by ten. A railroad yard is being laid which will contain 225 miles of trackand 870 switches. An immense locomotive-works is being erected forthe repairing and assembling of rolling-stock from America. It wasoriginally planned to bring over 960 standard locomotives and 30, 000freight-cars from the States, all equipped with French couplersand brakes so that they could become a permanent part of the Frenchrailroad system. These figures have since been somewhat reduced bythe purchase of rolling-stock in Europe. Reservoirs are being built atsome distance from the town which will be able to supply six millionsgallons of purified water a day. In order to obtain the necessaryquantity of pipe, piping will be torn up from various of thewater-systems in America and brought across the Atlantic. As theofficer, who was my informant remarked, "Rather than see France goshort, some city in the States will have to haul water in carts. "

As proof of the efficiency with which materials from America are beingfurnished, when the engineers arrived on the scene with 225 miles oftrack to lay, they found 100 miles of rails and spikes already waitingfor them. Of the 870 switches required, 350 were already on hand. Ofthe ties required, one-sixth were piled up for them to be going onwith. Not so bad for a nation quite new to the war-game and livingthree thousand miles beyond the horizon!

On further enquiry I learnt that six million cubic yards of fillingwere necessary to raise the ground of the railroad yard to the properlevel. In order that the work may be hurried, dredges are beingbrought across the Atlantic and, if necessary, harbour construction inthe States will be curtailed. 

I was interested in the personnel employed in this work. Here, aselsewhere, I found that the engineering and organising brains ofAmerica are largely in France. One colonel was head of the marbleindustry in the States; another had been vice-president of thePennsylvania Railroad. Another man, holding a sergeant's rank wasgeneral manager of the biggest fishing company. Another, a privatein the ranks, was chief engineer of the American Aluminum Company. Amajor was general manager of The Southern Pacific. Another colonel wasformerly controller of the currency and afterwards president of theCentral Trust Company of Illinois. A captain was chief engineer andbuilt the aqueducts over the keys of the Florida East Coast Railroad. As with us, you found men of the highest social and professional gradeserving in every rank of the American Army; one, a society man andbanker, was running a gang of negroes whose job it was to shovel sandinto cars. In peace times thirty thousand pounds a year could nothave bought him. What impressed me even more than the line ofcommunications itself was the quality of the men engaged on itsconstruction. As one of them said to me, "Any job that they give usengineers to do over here is likely to be small in comparison withthe ones we've had to tackle in America. " The man who said this hadpreviously done his share in the building of the Panama Canal. Therewere others I met, men who had spanned rivers in Alaska, flungrails across the Rockies, built dams in the arid regions, performedengineering feats in China, Africa, Russia--in all parts of the world. They were trained to be undaunted by the hugeness of any task; they'dalways beaten Nature in the long run. Their cheerful certainty thatAmerica in France was more than up to her job maintained a constantwave of enthusiasm. 

It may be asked why it is necessary in an old-established countrylike France, to waste time in enlarging harbours before you can makeeffective war. The answer is simple: France has not enough ports ofsufficient size to handle the tonnage that is necessary to supportthe Allied armies within her borders. America's greatest problem istonnage. She has the men and the materials in prodigal quantities, butthey are all three thousand miles away. Before the men can bebrought over, she has to establish her means of transport and lineof communications, so as to make certain that she can feed and clothethem when once she has got them into the front-line. There are twoways of economising on tonnage. One is to purchase in Europe. In thisway, up to February, The Purchasing Board of the Americans had savedninety days of transatlantic traffic. The other way is to have moderndocks, well railroaded, so that vessels can be unloaded in the leastpossible space of time and sent back for other cargoes. Hence it hasbeen sane economy on the part of America to put much of her earlyenergy into construction rather than into fighting. Nevertheless, ithas made her an easy butt for criticism both in the States and abroad, since the only proof to the newspaper-reader that America is at war isthe amount of front-line that she is actually defending. 

I had heard much of what was going on at a certain place which was tobe the intermediate point in the American line of communications. Ihad studied a blue-print map and had been amazed at its proportions. I was told, and can well believe, that when completed it was to be thebiggest undertaking of its kind in the world. It was to be six anda half miles long by about one mile broad. It was to have four anda half million feet of covered storage and ten million feet of openstorage. It was to contain over two hundred miles of track in itsrailroad yard and to house enough of the materials of war to keep amillion men fully equipped for thirty days. In addition to this it wasto have a plant, not for the repairing, but merely for the assemblingof aeroplanes, which would employ twenty thousand men. 

I arrived there at night. There was no town. One stepped from thetrain into the open country. Far away in the distance there was aglimmering of fires and the scarlet of sparks shooting up betweenbare tree-tops. My first impression was of the fragrance of pines and, after that, as I approached the huts, of a memory more definite andelusively familiar. The swinging of lanterns helped to bring it back:I was remembering lumber-camps in the Rocky Mountains. The box-stovein the shack in which I slept that night and the roughly timberedwalls served to heighten the illusion that I was in America. Nextmorning the illusion was completed. Here were men with mackinaws andgreen elk boots; here were cook-houses in which the only differencewas that a soldier did the cooking instead of a Chinaman; and aboveall, here were fir and pines growing out of a golden soil, with asoft wind blowing overhead. And here, in an extraordinary way, thedemocracy of a lumber-camp had been reproduced: every one fromthe Colonel down was a worker; it was difficult, apart from theirefficiency, to tell their rank. 

Early in the morning I started out on a gasolene-speeder to make thetour. At an astonishing rate, for the work had only been in hand threemonths, the vast acreage was being tracked and covered with the sheds. The sheds were not the kind I had been used to on my own front; theywere built out of anything that came handy, commenced with one sort ofmaterial and finished with another. Sometimes the cross-pieces in theroofs were still sweating, proving that it was only yesterday theyhad been cut down in the nearby wood. There was no look of permanenceabout anything. As the officer who conducted me said, "It's all runup--a race against time. " And then he added with a twinkle in his eye, "But it's good enough to last four years. "

This was America in France in every sense of the word. One felt theatmosphere of rush. In the buildings, which should have been left whenmaterials failed, but which had been carried to completion by pioneermethods, one recognised the resourcefulness of the lumberman of theWest. Then came a touch of Eastern America, to me almost more repletewith memory and excitement. In a flash I was transferred from a campin France to the rock-hewn highway of Fifth Avenue, running throughgroves of sky-scrapers, garnished with sunshine and echoing withtripping footsteps. I could smell the asphalt soaked with gasoleneand the flowers worn by the passing girls. The whole movement andquickness of the life I had lost flooded back on me. The sound I heardwas the fate _motif_ of the frantic opera of American endeavour. Thetruly wonderful thing was that I should hear it here, in a woodland inFrance--the rapid tapping of a steel-riveter at work. 

I learnt afterwards that I was not the only one to be carried away bythat music, as of a monstrous wood-pecker in an iron forest. The firstday the riveter was employed, the whole camp made excuses to comeand listen to it. They stood round it in groups, deafened andthrilled--and a little homesick. What the bag-pipe is to theScotchman, the steel-riveter is to the American--the instrument whichbest expresses his soul to a world which is different. 

I found that the riveter was being employed in the erection of animmense steel and concrete refrigerating plant, which was tohave machinery for the production of its own ice and sufficientmeat-storage capacity to provide a million men for thirty days. Thewater for the ice was being obtained from wells which had been alreadysunk. There was only surface water there when the Americans firststruck camp. 

As another clear-cut example of what America is accomplishing inFrance, I will take an aviation-camp. This camp is one of several, yetit alone will be turning out from 350 to 400 airmen a month. The areawhich it covers runs into miles. The Americans have their own ideasof aerial fighting tactics, which they will teach here on an intensivecourse and try out on the Hun from time to time. Some of their expertshave had the advantage of familiarising themselves with Hun aerialequipment and strategy; they were on his side of the line at the startof the war as neutral military observers. I liked the officer atthe head of this camp; I was particularly pleased with some of hisphrases. He was one of the first experts to fly with a Liberty engine. Without giving any details away, he assured me impressively that itwas "an honest-to-God engine" and that his planes were equipped with"an honest-to-God machine-gun, " and that he looked forward with cheeryanticipation to the first encounter his chaps would have with "thefestive Hun. " He was one of the few Americans I had met who spoke withsomething of our scornful affection for the enemy. It indicated to mehis absolute certainty that he could beat him at the flying game. Onhis lips the Hun was never the German or the Boche, but always "thefestive Hun. " You can afford to speak kindly, almost pityingly of someone you are going to vanquish. Hatred often indicates fear. Jocularityis a victorious sign. 

When I was in America last October a great effort was being made toproduce an overwhelming quantity of aeroplanes. Factories, both largeand small, in every State were specializing on manufacturing certainparts, the idea being that so time would be saved and efficiencygained. These separate parts were to be collected and assembled atvarious big government plants. The aim was to turn out planes asrapidly as Ford Cars and to swamp the Hun with numbers. America isunusually rich in the human as well as the mechanical material forcrushing the enemy in the air. In this service, as in all the others, the only difficulty that prevents her from making her fightingstrength immediately felt is the difficulty of transportation. Theroad of ships across the Atlantic has to be widened; the road of steelfrom the French ports to the Front has to be tracked and multiplied inits carrying capacity. These difficulties on land and water arebeing rapidly overcome: by adding to the means of transportation;by increasing the efficiency of the transport facilities alreadyexisting; by lightening the tonnage to be shipped from the States bybuying everything that is procurable in Europe. In the early monthsmuch of the available Atlantic tonnage was occupied with carrying thematerials of construction: rails, engines, concrete, lumber, and allthe thousand and one things that go to the housing of armies. Thisaccounts for America's delay in starting fighting. For three yearsEurope had been ransacked; very much of what America would require hadto be brought. Such work does not make a dramatic impression onother nations, especially when they are impatient. Its value as acontribution towards defeating the Hun is all in the future. Onlyvictories win applause in these days. Nevertheless, such work had tobe done. To do it thoroughly, on a sufficiently large scale, in theface of the certain criticism which the delay for thoroughness wouldoccasion, demanded bravery and patriotism on the part of thosein charge of affairs. By the time this book is published theirhigh-mindedness will have begun to be appreciated, for the results ofit will have begun to tell. The results will tell increasingly as thewar progresses. America is determined to have no Crimea scandals. Thecontentment and good condition of her troops in France will belargely owing to the organisation and care with which her line ofcommunications has been constructed. 

The purely business side of war is very dimly comprehended either bythe civilian or the combatant. The combatant, since he does whateverdying is to be done, naturally looks down on the business man inkhaki. The civilian is inclined to think of war in terms of the mobilewarfare of other days, when armies were rarely more than some oddthousands strong and were usually no more than expeditionary forces. Such armies by reason of their rapid movements and the comparativefewness of their numbers, were able to live on the countries throughwhich they marched. But our fighting forces of to-day are the manhoodof nations. The fronts which they occupy can scarcely boast a blade ofgrass. The towns which lie behind them have been picked clean to thevery marrow. France herself, into which a military population of manymillions has been poured, was never at the best of times entirelyself-supporting. Whatever surplus of commodities the Allies possessed, they had already shared long before the spring of 1917. When Americalanded into the war, she found herself in the position of one whoarrives at an overcrowded inn late at night. Whatever of food oraccommodation the inn could afford had been already apportioned;consequently, before America could put her first million men into thetrenches, she had to graft on to France a piece of the living tissueof her own industrial system--whole cities of repair-shops, hospitals, dwellings, store-houses, ice-plants, etc. , together with the purelybusiness personnel that go with them. These cities, though initiallyplanned to maintain and furnish a minimum number of fighting men, had to be capable of expansion so that they could ultimately supportmillions. 

Here are some facts and statistics which illustrate the big businessof war as Americans have undertaken it. They have had to erectcold storage-plants, with mechanical means for ice-manufacture, ofsufficient capacity to hold twenty-five million pounds of beef alwaysin readiness. 

They are at present constructing two salvage depots which, whencompleted, will be the largest in the world. Here they will repairand make fit for service again, shoes, harness, clothing, webbing, tentage, rubber-boots, etc. Attached to these buildings there areto be immense laundries which will undertake the washing for allthe American forces. In connection with the depots, there will be aSalvage Corps, whose work is largely at the Front. The materials whichthey collect will be sent back to the depots for sorting. Under theAmerican system every soldier, on coming out of the trenches, willreceive a complete new outfit, from the soles of his feet to the crownof his head. "This, " the General who informed me said tersely, "is ourway of solving the lice-problem. "

The Motor Transport also has its salvage depot. Knock-down buildingsand machinery have been brought over from the States, and upwards of4, 000 trained mechanics for a start. This depot is also responsiblefor the repairs of all horse-drawn transport, except the artillery. The Quartermaster General's Department alone will have 35, 000 motorpropelled vehicles and a personnel of 160, 000 men. 

Every effort is being made to employ labour-saving devices tothe fullest extent. The Supply Department expects to cut down itspersonnel by two-thirds through the efficient use of machinery andderricks. The order compelling all packages to be standardized indifferent graded sizes, so that they can be forwarded directly tothe Front before being broken, has already done much to expeditetransportation. The dimensions of the luggage of a modern army canbe dimly realized when it is stated that the American armies willinitially require twenty-four million square feet of covered andforty-one million of unroofed storage--not to mention the barrackspace. 

Within the next few months they will require bakeries capable offeeding one million and a quarter men. These bakeries are dividedinto: the field bakeries, which are portable, and the mechanicalbakeries which are stationary and on the line of communications. Oneof the latter had just been acquired and was described to me when Iwas in the American area. It was planned throughout with a view tolabour-saving. It was so constructed that it could take the flour offthe cars and, with practically no handling, convert it into breadat the rate of 750, 000 lbs. A day. This struck me as a peculiarlyAmerican contribution to big business methods; but on expressing thisopinion I was immediately corrected. This form of bakery was a Britishinvention, which has been in use for some time on our lines. TheAmericans owed their possession of the bakery to the courtesy of theBritish Government, who had postponed their own order and allowed theAmericans to fill theirs four months ahead of their contract. 

This is a sample of the kind of discovery that I was perpetuallymaking. Two out of three times when I thought I had run across acharacteristically American expression of efficiency, I was told thatit had been copied from the British. I learnt more about my own army'sbusiness efficiency in studying it secondhand with the Americans, than I had ever guessed existed in all the time that I had been aninhabitant of the British Front. It is characteristic of us as apeople that we like to pretend that we muddle our way into success. We advertise our mistakes and camouflage our virtues. We are almostashamed of gaining credit for anything that we have done well. Thereis a fine dishonesty about this self-belittlement; but it is notalways wise. During these first few months of their being at warthe Americans have discovered England in almost as novel a sense asColumbus did America. It was a joy to be with them and to watch theirsurprise. The odd thing was that they had had to go to France tofind us out. Here they were, the picked business men of the world'sgreatest industrial nation, frankly and admiringly hats off to British"muddle-headed" methods. Not only were they hats off to the methods, many of which they were copying, but they were also hats off to thegenerous helpfulness of our Government and Military authorities in thematter of advice, co-operation and supplies. From the private in theranks, who had been trained by British N. C. O. 's and Officers, tothe Generals at the head of departments, there was only one feelingexpressed for Great Britain--that of a new sincerity of friendship andadmiration. "John Bull and his brother Jonathan" had become more thanan empty phrase; it expressed a true and living relation. 

A similar spirit of appreciation had grown up towards the French--notthe emotional, histrionic, Lafayette appreciation with which theAmerican troops sailed from America, but an appreciation based onsympathy and a knowledge of deeds and character. I think this spiritwas best illustrated at Christmas when all over France, whereverAmerican troops were billeted, the rank and file put their hands deepinto their pockets to give the refugee children of their district thefirst real Christmas they had had since their country was invaded. Officers were selected to go to Paris to do the purchasing of thepresents, and I know of at least one case in which the men's gift wasso generous that there was enough money left over to provide for thechildren throughout the coming year. 

In France one hears none of that patronising criticism which usedto exist in America with regard to the older nations--none of thosearrogant assertions that "because we are younger we can do thingsbetter. " The bias of the American in France is all the other way; heis near enough to the Judgment Day, which he is shortly to experience, to be reverent in the presence of those who have stood its test. He isin France to learn as well as to contribute. Between himself and hisbrother soldiers of the British and French armies, there exists anentirely manly and reciprocal respect. And it is reciprocal; both theindividual British and French fighting-man, now that they have seenthe American soldier, are clamorous to have him adjacent to theirline. The American has scarcely been blooded at this moment, and yet, having seen him, they are both certain that he's not the pal to letthem down. 

The confidence that the American soldier has created among hissoldier-Allies was best expressed to me by a British officer: "TheBritish, French and Americans are the three great promise-keepingnations. For the first time in history we're standing together. We're promise-keepers banded together against the falsehood ofGermany--that's why. It isn't likely that we shall start to tell liesto one another. "

Not likely!

III

THE WAR OF COMPASSION

Officially America declared war on Germany in the spring of 1917;actually she committed her heart to the allied cause in September, 1914, when the first shipment of the supplies of mercy arrived inParis from the American Red Cross. 

There are two ways of waging war: you can fight with artillery andarmed men; you can fight with ambulances and bandages. There's the warof destruction and the war of compassion. The one defeats the enemydirectly with force; the other defeats him indirectly by maintainingthe morale of the men who are fighting and, what is equally important, of the civilians behind the lines. Belgium would not be the utterlydefiant and unconquered nation that she is to-day, had it not been forthe mercy of Hoover and his disciples. Their voluntary presencemade the captured Belgian feel that he was earning the thanks of alltime--that the eyes of the world were upon him. They were neutrals, but their mere presence condemned the cause that had brought themthere. Their compassion waged war against the Hun. The same is true ofthe American Ambulance Units which followed the French Armies into thefiercest of the carnage. They confirmed the poilu in his burning senseof injustice. That they, who could have absented themselves, shouldchoose the damnation of destruction and dare the danger, convinced theentire French nation of its own righteousness. And it was true of thegirls at the American hospitals who nursed the broken bodies whichtheir brothers had rescued. It was true of Miss Holt's _Lighthouse_for the training of blinded soldiers, which she established in Pariswithin eight months of war's commencement. It was true of the AmericanRelief Clearing House in Paris which, up to January, 1917, hadreceived 291 shipments and had distributed eight million francs. Bythe time America put on armour, the American Red Cross, as the army'sexpert in the strategy of compassion, found that it had to take overmore than eighty-six separate organisations which had been operatingin France for the best part of two years. 

One cannot show pity with indignant hands and keep the mind neutral. The Galilean test holds true, "He who is not for me is against me. "You cannot leave houses, lands, children, wife--everything thatcounts--for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake without developing arudimentary aversion for the devil. All of which goes to prove thatAmerica's heart was fighting for the Allies long before her ambassadorrequested his passports from the Kaiser. 

The American Red Cross Commission landed in France on the 12th ofJune, 1917, seven days ahead of the Expeditionary Force. It hadtaken less than five days to organise. Its first act was to convey amonetary gift to the French hospitals. The first actual American RedCross contribution was made in April to the Number Five British BaseHospital. The first American soldiers in France were doctors andnurses. The first American fighting done in France was done with theweapons of pity. The chief function of the American Red Cross upto the present has been to "carry on" and to bridge the gap ofunavoidable delays while the army is preparing. 

To prove that this "war of compassion" is no idle phrase, let meillustrate with one dramatic instance. When the Italian line brokeunder the pressure of Hun artillery and propaganda, the American RedCross sent representatives forward to inaugurate relief work forthe 700, 000 refugees, who were pouring southward from the Friuti andVeneto, homeless, hungry, possessing nothing but misfortune, spreadingdespair and panic every step of the journey. Their bodies must becared for--that was evident; it would be easy for them to carrydisease throughout Italy. But the disease of their minds was an evengreater danger; if their demoralisation were not checked, it wouldinevitably prove contagious. 

The first two representatives of the American Red Cross arrived inRome on November 5th, with a quarter of a million dollars at theirdisposal. That night they had a soup-kitchen going and fed 400 people. Their first day's work is the record of an amazing spurt of energy. Inthat first day they sent money for relief to every American Consul inthe districts affected. They mobilised the American colony in Rome andarranged by wire for similar organisations to be formed throughoutthe length and breadth of Italy, wherever they could lay hands on anAmerican. On all principal junction points through which the refugeeswould pass, soup-kitchens were installed and clothes were purchasedand ready to be distributed as the trains pulled into the stations. They were badly needed, for the passengers had endured all the rigoursof the retreat with the soldiers. They had been under shell andmachine-gun fire. They had been bombed by aeroplanes. No horror ofwarfare had been spared them. Their clothes were verminous with weeksof wearing. They were packed like cattle. Babies born on the journeywere wrapped in newspapers. There were instances of officers takingoff their shirts that the little bodies should not go naked. Atelegram was at once despatched to Paris for food and clothes andhospital supplies. Twenty-four cars came through within a week, despite the unusual military traffic. This ends the list of what wasaccomplished by two men in one day. 

The great thing was to make the demoralised Italians feel that Americawas on the spot and helping them. The sending of troops could not havereused their fighting spirit. They were sick of fighting. What theyneeded was the assurance that the world was not wholly brutal--thatthere was some one who was merciful, who did not condemn and whowas moved by their sorrow. This assurance the prompt action of theAmerican Red Cross gave. It restored in the affirmative with mercy, precisely the quality which Hun fury and propaganda had destroyed withlies. It restored to them their belief in the nobility of mankind, outof which belief grows all true courage. 

As the work progressed, it branched out on a much larger scale, embracing civilian, military and child-welfare activities. In themonth of November upward of half a million lire were placed in thehands of American consuls for distribution. One million lire werecontributed for the benefit of soldiers' families. A permanentheadquarters was established with trained business men and men who hadhad experience under Hoover in Belgium in charge of its departments. Over 100 hospitals and two principal magazines of hospital storeshad been lost in the retreat. The American Red Cross made up thisdeficiency by supplying the bedding for no less than 3, 000 beds. Five weeks after the first two representatives had reached Romethree complete ambulance sections, each section being made up of 20ambulances, a staff car, a kitchen trailer and 33 men, were turnedover to the Italian Medical Service of the third Army. By the firstweek in December the stream of refugees had practically stopped. Italyhad been made to realise that she was not fighting alone; her moralehad returned to her. This work, which had been initially undertakenfrom purely altruistic motives, had proved to possess a value of thehighest military importance--an importance of the spirit utterly outof proportion to the money and labour expended. Magnanimity arousesmagnanimity. In this case it revived the flame of Garibaldi which hadall but died. It achieved a strategic victory of the soul which noamount of military assistance could have accomplished. The victoryof the American Red Cross on the Italian Front is all the moresignificant since it was not until months later that Congress declaredwar on Austria. 

The campaign which the American Red Cross is waging in every countryin which it operates, is frankly an "out to win" campaign. To win thewar is its one and only object. What the army does for the courage ofthe body, the Red Cross does for the courage of the mind. It buildsup the hearts and hopes of people who in three and a half years havegrown numb. It restores the human touch to their lives and, withit, the spiritual horizon. Its business, while the army is stillpreparing, is to bring home to the Allies in every possible way thefact that America, with her hundred and ten millions of population, isin the war with them, eager to play the game, anxious to sacrifice asthey have sacrificed, to give her man-power and resources as they havedone, until justice has been established for every man and nation. 

It is necessary to lay stress on this programme since it differsgreatly from the popular conception of the functions of the Red Crossin the battle area. It was on the field of Solferino in 1859, thatHenri Dunant went out before the fury had spent itself to tend thewounded. It was here that he was fired with his great ambition tofound a non-combatant service, which should recognise no enemies andbe friends with every army. His ambition was realised when in 1864 theConference at Geneva chose the Swiss flag, reversed, as its emblem--ared cross on a field of white--and laid the foundations for thoseinternational understandings which have since formed for allcombatants, except the Hun in this present warfare, the protective lawfor the sick and wounded. The original purpose of the Red Cross stillfills the imagination of the masses to the exclusion of all else thatit is doing. Directly the term "Red Cross" is mentioned the picturethat forms in most men's minds is of ambulances galloping throughthe thick of battle-smoke and of devoted stretcher-bearers who bravedanger not to kill, but in order that they may save lives. 

This war has changed all that. To-day the Red Cross has to ministerto not the wounded of armies only, but to the wounded of nations. Ina country like France, with trenches dug the entire length of hereastern frontier and vast territories from which the entire populationhas been evacuated, the wounds of her armies are small in comparisonwith the wounds, bodily and mental, of her civil population--woundswhich are the outcome of over three years of privation. When the civilpopulation of any country has lost its pluck, no matter how splendidthe spirit of its soldiers, its armies become paralysed. The civilianscan commence peace negotiations behind the backs of their men in thetrenches. They can insist on peace by refusing to send them ammunitionand supplies. As a matter of fact the morale of the soldiers variesdirectly with the morale of the civilians for whom they fight. Behindevery soldier stand a woman and a group of children. Their safety ishis inspiration. If they are neglected, his sacrifice is belittled. If they beg that he should lay down his arms, his determination isweakened. It is therefore a vital necessity, quite apart from thehumanitarian aspect, that the wounds of the civilians of belligerentcountries should be cared for. If the civilians are allowed to becomedisheartened and cowardly, the heroic ideal of their fighting-men isjeopardised. This fact has been recognised by the Red Cross Societiesof all countries in the present war; a large part of their energieshas been devoted to social and relief work of a civil nature. Evenin their purely military departments, the comfort of the troopsclaims quite as much attention as their medical treatment andhospitalisation. As a matter of fact, the actual carrying of thewounded out of the trenches to the comparative safety of the dressingstation is usually done by combatants. A man has to live continuallyunder shell-fire to acquire the immunity to fear which passes forcourage. The bravest man is likely to get "jumpy, " if he only faces upto a bombardment occasionally. There are other reasons why combatantsshould do the stretcher-bearing which do not need elaborating. Thecombatants have an expert knowledge of their own particular frontage;they are "wise" to the barraged areas; they are "up front" andcontinually coming and going, so it is often an economy of man-powerfor them to attend to their own wounded in the initial stages; theyare the nearest to a comrade when he falls and all carry the necessaryfirst-aid dressings; the emblem of the Red Cross has proved to be onlya slight protection, as the Hun is quite likely not to respect it. What I am driving at is that the Red Cross has had to adapt itself tothe new conditions of modern warfare, so that very many of its mostimportant present-day functions are totally different from whatpopular fancy imagines. 

The American Red Cross has its French Headquarters in a famousgambling club in the Place de la Concorde. It is somewhat strange topass through these rooms where rakes once flung away fortunes, andto find them industriously orderly with the conscience of an importednation. By far the larger part of the staff are business men ofthe Wall Street type--not at all the kind who have been accustomedto sentimentalise over philanthropy. There is also a sprinklingof trained social workers, clergy, journalists, and universityprofessors. The medical profession is represented by some of theleading specialists of the States, but at Headquarters they aredistinctly in the minority. The purely medical work of the AmericanRed Cross forms only a part of its total activities. The menat the head of affairs are bankers, merchants, presidents ofcorporations--men who have been trained to think in millions andto visualise broad areas. Girls are very much in evidence. They areusually volunteers, drawn from all classes, who offered their servicesto do anything that would help. To-day they are typists, secretaries, stenographers, nurses. 

The organisation is divided into three main departments:the department of military affairs, of civil affairs and ofadministration. Under these departments come a variety of bureaus:the bureau of rehabilitation and reconstruction; of the care andprevention of tuberculosis; of needy children and infant mortality;of refugees and relief; of the re-education of the French mutilés; ofsupplies; of the rolling canteens for the French armies; of the U. S. Army Division; of the Military, Medical and Surgical Division, etc. They are too numerous to mention in detail. The best way I can conveythe picture of immense accomplishment is to describe what I actuallysaw in the field of operations. 

The first place I will take you to is Evian, because here you see thetragedy and need of France as embodied in individuals. Evian-les-Bainsis on Lake Geneva, looking out across the water to Switzerland. It isthe first point of call across the French frontier for the repatriésreturning from their German bondage. When the Boche first swept downon the northern provinces he pushed the French civilian populationbehind him. He has since kept them working for him as serfs, labouringin the captured coal-mines, digging his various lines of defences, setting up wire-entanglements, etc. Apart from the testimony ofrepatriated French civilians, I myself have seen messages addressedby Frenchmen to their wives, scrawled surreptitiously on the planks ofHun dug-outs in the hope that one day the dug-outs would be captured, and the messages passed on by a soldier of the Allies. After three anda half years of enforced labour, many of these captured civilians areworked out. To the Boche, with his ever-increasing food-shortage, theyrepresent useless mouths. Instead of filling them he is driving theirowners back, broken and useless, by way of Switzerland. To him humanbeings are merchandise to be sold upon the hoof like cattle. Nospiritual values enter into the bargain. When the body is exhausted itis sent to the knacker's, as though it belonged to a worn-out horse. The entire attitude is materialistic and degrading. Evian-les-Bains, the once gay gambling resort of the cosmopolitan, has become theknacker's shop for French civilians exhausted by their Germanservitude. The Hun shoves them across the border at the rate of about1, 300 a day. From the start I have always felt that this war was acrusade; what I saw at Evian made me additionally certain. When I wasin the trenches I never had any hatred of the Boche. Probably I shalllose my hatred in pity for him when I get to the Front again--butfor the present I hate him. It's here in France that one sees what avileness he has created in the children's and women's lives. 

I took the night train down from Paris. Early in the morning I wokeup to find myself in the gorges of the Alps, high peaks with romanticItalian-looking settings soaring on every side. At noon we reachedLake Geneva, lying slate-coloured and sombre beneath a wintry sky. That afternoon I saw the train of repatriés arrive. 

I was on the platform when the train pulled into the station. It mighthave been a funeral cortége, only there was a horrible difference: thecorpses pretended to be alive. The American Ambulance men were therein force. They climbed into the carriages and commenced to help theinfirm to alight. The exiles were all so stiff with travel that theycould scarcely move at first. The windows of the train were grey withfaces. Such faces! All of them old, even the little children's. TheBoche makes a present to France of only such human wreckage as isunuseful for his purposes. He is an acute man of business. The convoyconsisted of two classes of persons--the very ancient and the veryjuvenile. You can't set a man of eighty to dig trenches and you can'tmake a prostitute out of a girl-child of ten. The only boys were ofthe mal-nourished variety. Men, women and children--they all had theappearance of being half-witted. 

They were terribly pathetic. As I watched them I tried to picture tomyself what three and a half long years of captivity must have meant. How often they must have dreamt of the exaltation of this day--andnow that it had arrived, they were not exalted. They had the look ofpeople so spiritually benumbed that they would never know despair orexaltation again. They had a broken look; their shoulders were crushedand their skirts bedraggled. Many of them carried babies--prettylittle beggars with flaxen hair. It wasn't difficult to guess theirparentage. 

As they were herded on the platform a low, strangled kind of moaningwent up. I watched individual lips to see where the sound came from. I caught no movement. The noise was the sighing of tired animals. Every one had some treasured possession. Here was an old man withan alarm-clock; there an aged woman with an empty bird-cage. A boycarried half-a-dozen sauce-pans strung together. Another had a sparepair of patched boots under his arm. Quite a lot of them clutched abundle of umbrellas. I found myself reflecting that these were theremnants of families who had been robbed of everything that theyvalued in the world. Whatever they had saved from the ruin ought torepresent the possession which had claimed most of their affections, and yet--! What did an alarm-clock, an empty bird-cage, a pair ofpatched boots, a string of sauce-pans, a bundle of ragged umbrellassignify in any life? What utter poverty, if these were the best thatthey could save!

There was a band on the platform, consisting mainly of bugles anddrums, to welcome them. The leader is reputed to be the laziest manin the French Army. It is said that they tried him at everything andthen, in despair, sent him to Evian to drum forgotten happiness intothe bones of repatriés. Whatever his former military record, he nowdoes his utmost to impersonate the defiant and impassioned soul ofFrance. His moustaches are curled fiercely. His brows are heavy asthunderclouds. When he drums, the veins swell out in his neck with theviolence of his energy. 

Suddenly, with an ominous preliminary rumble, the band struck upthe Marseillaise. You should have seen the change in this crowdof corpses. You must remember that these people had been so longaccustomed to lies and snares that it would probably take days topersuade them that they were actually safe home in France. 

As the battle-song for which they had suffered shook the air theirlips rustled like leaves. There was hardly any sound--only a hoarsewhisper. Then, all of a sudden, words came--an inarticulate, sobbingcommotion. Tears blinded the eyes of every spectator, even those whohad witnessed similar scenes often; we were crying because the singingwas so little human. 

"Vive la France! Vive la France!" They waved flags--not thetri-colour, but flags which had been given them in Switzerland. Theyclung together dazed, women with slatternly dresses, children withpeaked faces, men unhappy and unshaven. A woman caught sight of myuniform. "Vive l'Angleterre, " she cried, and they all came stumblingforward to embrace me. It was horrible. They creaked like automatons. They gestured and mouthed, but the soul had been crushed out of theireyes. You don't need any proofs of Hun atrocities; the proofs are tobe seen at Evian. There are no severed hands, no crucified bodies;only hearts that have been mutilated. Sorrow is at its saddest whenit cannot even contrive to appear dignified. There is no dignityabout the repatriés at Evian, with their absurd umbrellas, sauce-pans, patched-boots, alarm-clocks and bird-cages. They do not appeal to oneas sacrificed patriots. There is no nobility in their vacant stare. They create a cold feeling of bodily decay--only it is the spirit thatis dead and gangrenous. 

There is a blasphemous story by Leonid Andreyev, which recounts thebitterness of the after years of Lazarus and the mischief Christwrought in recalling him from the grave. After his unnatural returnto life there was a blueness as of putrescence beneath his pallor;an iciness to his touch; a choking silence in his presence; a horrorin his gaze, as if he were remembering his three days in thesepulchre--as if forbidden knowledge groped behind his eyes. He rarelylooked at any one; there were none who courted his glance, who did notcreep away to die. The terror of his fame spread beyond Bethany. Romeheard of him, and at that safe distance laughed. It did not laughafter Cæsar Augustus had sent for him. Cæsar Augustus was a god uponearth; he could not die. But when he had questioned Lazarus, peepedthrough the windows of his eyes, and read what lay hidden in thatforbidden memory, he commanded that red-hot irons should quench suchsight for ever. From Rome Lazarus groped his way back to Palestine andthere, long years after his Saviour had been crucified, continued tostumble through his own particular Gethsemane of blindness. I thoughtof that story in the presence of this crowd, which carried with it thetaint of the grave. 

But the band was still playing the Marseillaise--over and over itplayed it. With each repetition it was as though these people, threeyears dead, made another effort to cast aside their shrouds. Littleby little something was happening--something wonderful. Backs werestraightening; skirts were being caught up; resolution was ripplingfrom face to face--it passed and re-passed with each new roll of thedrums. The hoarse cries and moaning with which we had commenced weregradually transforming themselves into singing. 

There were some who were too weak to walk; these were carried by theAmerican Red Cross men into the waiting ambulances. The remainder weremarshalled into a disorderly procession and led out of the station bythe band. 

We were moving down the hill to the palaces beside the lake--thepalaces to which all France used to troop for pleasure. We movedsoddenly at first, shuffling in our steps. But the drums were stillrolling out their defiance and the bugles were still blowing. Thelaziest man in the French Army was doing his utmost to belie hisrecord. The ill-shod, flattened feet took up the music. They began todance. Were there ever feet less suited to dancing? That they shoulddance was the acme of tragedy. Stockings fell down in creases aboutthe ankles. Women commenced to jig their Boche babies in their arms;consumptive men and ancients waved their sauce-pans and grotesquebundles of umbrellas. The sight was damnable. It was a burlesque. Itpierced the heart. What right had the Boche to leave these people socomic after he had squeezed the life-blood out of them?

All his insults to humanity became suddenly typified in these fivehundred jumping tatterdemalions--the way in which he had plundered theworld of its youth, its cleanness, its decency. I felt an anger whichbattlefields had never aroused, where men moulder above ground andbecome unsightly beneath the open sky. The slain of battlefieldswere at least motionless; they did not gape and grin at you withthe dreadful humour of these perambulating dead. I felt the Galileanpassion which animates every Red Cross worker at Evian: the agonyto do something to make these murdered people live again. This lastconvoy came, I discovered, from a city behind the Boche lines againstwhich last summer I had often directed fire. It was full in sight frommy observing station. I had watched the very houses in which thesepeople, who now walked beside me, had sheltered. For three and a halfyears these women's bodies had been at the Hun's mercy. I tried tobring the truth home to myself. Their men and young girls had beenleft behind. They themselves had been flung back on overburdenedFrance only because they were no longer serviceable. They werereturning actually penniless, though seemingly with money. The thriftyGerman makes a practice of seizing all the good redeemable Frenchmoney of the repatriés before he lets them escape him, giving them inexchange worthless paper stuff of his own manufacture, which has nosecurity behind it and is therefore not negotiable. 

We came to the Casino, where endless formalities were necessary. Firstof all in the big hall, formerly devoted to gambling, the repatriéswere fed at long tables. As I passed, odd groups seeing my uniform, hurriedly dropped whatever they were doing and, removing their caps, stood humbly at attention. There was fear in their promptness. Wherethey came from an officer exacted respect with the flat of hissword. What a dumb, helpless jumble of humanity! It was as though theoccupants of a morgue had become galvanised and had temporarily risenfrom their slabs. 

The band had been augmented by trumpets. It took its place in thegallery and deluged the hall with patriotic fervour. An old manclimbed on a table and yelled, "Vive La France!" But they had growntired of shouting; they soon grew tired. The cry was taken up faintlyand soon exhausted itself. Nothing held their attention for long. Most of them sat hunched up and inert, weakly crying. They were notbeautiful. They were not like our men who die in battle. They wereanimated memories of horror. "What lies before us? What lies beforeus?" That was the question that their silence asked perpetually. Someof them had husbands with the French army; others had sweethearts. What would those men say to the flaxen-haired babies who nestledagainst the women's breasts? And the sin was not theirs--they weresuch tired, pretty mites. "What lies before us?" The babies, too, might well have asked that question. Do you wonder that I at lastbegan to share the Frenchman's hatred for the Boche?

An extraordinary person in a white tie, top hat and evening dressentered. He looked like a cross between Mr. Gerard's description ofhimself in Berlin and a head-waiter. He evidently expected his adventto cause a profound sensation. I found out why: he was the officialwelcomer to Evian. Twice a day, for an infinity of days, he hadentered in solemn fashion, faced the same tragic assembly, made thesame fiery oration, gained applause at the climax of the same roundedperiods and allowed his voice to break in the same rightly timedplaces. Having kept his audience in sufficient suspense as regardshis mission, he unwrapped the muffler from his neck, removed his coat, felt his throat to see whether it was in good condition, swelled outhis chest, including his waist-coat which was spanned by the broadribbon of his office, then let loose the painter of his emotion andslipped off into the mid-stream of perfunctory eloquence. With all hisdisrobing he had retained his top-hat; he held it in his right handwith the brim pressed against his thigh, very much in the manner ofa showman at a circus. It contributed largely to the opulence of hisgestures. 

He always seemed to have concluded and was always starting up afresh, as if in reluctant response to spectral clapping. He called upon therepatriés never to forget the crimes that had been wrought againstthem--to spread abroad the fire of their indignation, the story oftheir ravished womanhood and broken families all over France. Theywatched him leaden-eyed and wept softly. To forget, to forget, thatwas all that they wanted--to blot out all the past. This man withthe top-hat and the evening-dress, he hadn't suffered--how could heunderstand? They didn't want to remember; with those flaxen-hairedchildren against their breasts the one boon they craved wasforgetfulness. And so they cowered and wept softly. It wasintolerable. 

And now the formalities commenced. They all had to be medicallyexamined. Questions of every description were asked them. They weredrifted from bureau to bureau where people sat filling up officialblanks. The Americans see to the children. They come from living incellars, from conditions which are insanitary, from cities in thearmy zones where they were underfed. The fear is that they mayspread contagion all over France. When infectious cases are found theremnants of families have to be broken up afresh. The mothers collapseon benches sobbing their hearts out as their children are led away. For three and a half years everything they have loved has been ledaway--how can they believe that these Americans mean only mercy?

From three to four hours are spent in completing all these necessaryinvestigations. Before the repatriés are conducted to their billets, all their clothes have to be disinfected and every one has to bebathed. The poor people are utterly worn out by the end of it--theyhave already done a continuous four days' journey in cramped trains. Before being sent to France they have been living for from two tothree weeks in Belgium. The Hun always sends the repatriés to Belgiumfor a few weeks before returning them. The reason for this is thatthey for the most part come from the army zones, and a few weeks willmake any information they possess out of date. Another reason isthat food is more plentiful in Belgium, thanks to the Allies' ReliefCommission. These people have been kept alive on sugar-beets for thepast few months, so it is as well to feed them at the Allies' expensefor a little while, in order that they may create a better impressionwhen they return to France. The American doctors pointed out to me thepulpy flesh of the children and the distended stomachs which, to theunpractised eye, seemed a sign of over-nourishment. "Wind and water, "they said; "that's all these children are. They've no stamina. Sugar-beets are the most economic means of just keeping the body andthe soul together. "

The lights are going out in the Casino. It is the hour when, inthe old days, life would be becoming most feverish about the gamingtables. In little forlorn groups the repatriés are being conductedto their temporary quarters in the town. To-morrow morning before itis light, another train-load will arrive, the band will again playthe Marseillaise, the American Red Cross workers will again be inattendance, the gentleman in the top-hat and white-tie will again makehis fiery oration of welcome, his audience will again pay no attentionbut will weep softly--the tediously heart-rending scene will berehearsed throughout in every detail by an entirely new batch ofactors. Twice a day, summer and winter, the same tragedy is enacted atEvian. It is a continuous, never-ending performance. 

Poor people! These whom I have seen, if they have no friends to claimthem, will re-start their journey to some strange department on whichthey will be billeted as paupers. Here again the American Red Cross isdoing good work, for it sends one of its representatives ahead to seethat proper preparations have been made for their reception. Afterthey have reached their destination, it looks them up from time totime to make sure that they are being well cared for. 

If one wants to picture the case of the repatrié in its true misery, all he needs to do is to convert it into terms of his own mother orgrandmother. She has lived all her life in the neighbourhood of Vimy, let us say. She was married there and it was there that she boreall her children. She and her husband have saved money; they aresubstantial people now and need not fear the future. Their sons aregaining their own living; one daughter is married, the others arearriving at the marriageable age. One day the Hun sweeps down on them. The sons escape to join the French army; the girls and their parentsstay behind to guard their property. They are immediately evacuatedfrom Vimy and sent to some city, such as Drocourt, further behindthe Hun front-line. Here they are gradually robbed of all theirpossessions. At the beginning all their gold is confiscated; latereven the mattresses upon their beds are requisitioned. For three anda half years they are subjected to both big and petty tyrannies, till their spirits are so broken that fear becomes their predominantemotion. The father is led away to work in the mines. One by one thedaughters are commandeered and sent off into the heart of Germany, where it will be no one's business to guard their virtue. At lastthe mother is left with only her youngest child. Of her sons who arefighting with the French armies she has no knowledge, whether they areliving or dead. Then one day it is decided by her captors that theyhave no further use for her. They part her from her last remainingchild and pack her off by way of Belgium and Switzerland back to herown country. She arrives at Evian penniless and half-witted with theterror of her sorrow. There is no one to claim her; the part of Francethat knew her is all behind the German lines. A label is tied to her, as if she was a piece of baggage, and she is shipped off to Avignon, let us say. She has never been in the South before; it is a foreigncountry to her. Poverty and adversity have broken her pride; she hasnothing left that will command respect. There is nothing left in lifeto which she can fasten her affections. Such utter forlornness isnever a welcome sight. Is it to be wondered at that the strangers towhom she is sent are not always glad to see her? Is it to be wonderedat that, after her repatriation, she often wilts and dies? Her sorrowhas the appearance of degradation. Wherever she goes, she is a threatand a peril to the fighting morale of the civilian population. Yet inher pre-war kindliness and security she might have been your mother ormine. 

The American Red Cross, by maintaining contact with such people, iskeeping them reminded that they are not utterly deserted--that thewhole of civilised humanity cares tremendously what becomes of themand is anxious to lighten the load of their sacrifice. 

 * * * * *

I have before me a pile of sworn depositions, made by exiles returnedfrom the invaded territories. They are separately numbered and dated;each bears the name of the region or town from which the repatriécame. Here are a few extracts which, when pieced together, form apicture of the life of captured French civilians behind the Germanlines. I have carefully avoided glaring atrocities. Atrocities areas a rule isolated instances, due to isolated causes. They occur, butthey are not typical of the situation. The real Hun atrocity is theattitude towards life which calls chivalry sentiment, fair-play awaste of opportunity and ruthlessness strength. This attitude isall summed up in the one word Prussianism. The repatriés have beenPrussianised out of their wholesome joy and belief in life; it is thisthat makes them the walking accusations that they are to-day. Inthe following depositions they give some glimpses of the calculatedprocesses by which their happiness has been murdered. 

 * * * * *

"Lately copper, tin, and zinc have been removed in the factories andamongst the traders, and quite recently in private houses. For allthese requisitions the Germans gave Requisition Bonds, but privateindividuals who received them never got paid the money. To force mento work 'voluntarily' and sign contracts the Germans employed thefollowing means: the Germans gave these men nothing to eat, butauthorised their families to send them parcels; these parcels once inthe hands of the Germans are shown to these unhappy men and are nothanded over until they have signed. About a week ago young boys fromthe age of fourteen who had come back from the Ardennes had to presentthemselves at the Kdr to be registered anew; a number of the youngpeople work in the sawmills, etc. ; some have died of privation andfatigue. "

 * * * * *

"A week after Easter this year the population of LILLE was warned byposter that all must be ready to leave the town. At three o'clock inthe morning private houses were invaded by the German soldiers; theysorted out women and girls who were to be deported. There then tookplace scandalous scenes: young girls belonging to the most worthyfamilies in the town had to pass medical visits even with the speculumand had to endure most atrocious physical and moral suffering. Theseyoung girls were segregated like beasts anywhere in the rooms of thetown halls and schoolhouses, and were mingled with the dregs of thepopulation. "

 * * * * *

"For a certain time the Germans did not requisition milk and allowedit to be sold, but now this is forbidden under a fine of 1, 000 marksor three months' imprisonment. Recently WIGNEHIES was fined 100, 000frcs. , and as the whole of this sum was not paid the Germans inflictedpunishment as follows: Several inhabitants of WIGNEHIES were caught inthe act of disobeying by the gendarmes and were struck, and bitten bythe police dogs of the gendarmes because they refused to denounce thesellers.... Brutal treatment is due more to the gendarmes than to thesoldiers. About six weeks ago Marceau Horlet of WIGNEHIES wasfound, on a search by the gendarmes, to have a piece of meat in hispossession. He was brutally beaten by them and bitten by the policedogs because he refused to say who had given it to him. In 1915, theyouth Rémy Valléi of WIGNEHIES, age 15, was walking in the streetafter 6-9 p. M. , which was forbidden; he was seen by two gendarmes andran away. He was straightway killed, receiving six revolver bullets inhis body. "

 * * * * *

"At PIGNICOURT during the CHAMPAGNE offensive the village wasbombarded by the French, who were attempting to destroy the railwaylines and bridges. The Commandant, by name Krama, of the Kdr, forcedmen and youths, and even women, to fill up the holes made by thebombardment during the action. A German general passed and reprimandedthem on the ground that there was danger to the civilians; they werewithdrawn for the moment, but sent back as soon as the general hadleft. "

 * * * * *

"As regards the Hispano-American revictualling, it may be said withtruth that without this the population of Northern France would havedied of hunger, for the Germans considered themselves liberated fromany responsibility. During the first months of the war before thisCommittee started, the Germans put up posters saying that the Allieswere trying to starve Germany, who in turn was not obliged to feed theinvaded territory.... When informant (who is from ST. QUENTIN) left atthe general evacuation of this town, no requisition bonds were givenfor household goods. As the inhabitants left, their furniture wasloaded on to motor lorries and taken to the station, whence it wassent by special train to Germany. This shows clearly that requisitionbonds issued by the Germans show only the small proportion of what hasbeen suffered by the inhabitants.... Informant was the witness of theexecution of French civilians whose only fault was either to hidearms or pigeons: several who had committed these infractions ofrequisitions were shot, and the Germans announced the fact by posterof a blood-red colour. In other cases the men shot were Britishprisoners who had dressed in civil clothes on the arrival of theGermans. Informant had a long conversation with one of them beforehis execution. He told informant how he had been unable to leave ST. QUENTIN, viz. , by the 28th August. Some passers-by offered to hidehim. It appears that, through his ignorance of the French language, he was unaware that the Germans threatened execution to all men foundafter a certain date. He was discovered and condemned to death forespionage. It is obvious, as the man himself said, that one could notimagine a man acting as a spy without knowing either the language ofthe country or that of the enemy. "

 * * * * *

"Before the evacuation of the population the Germans chose those whowere to remain as civilian workers, viz. , 120 men from 15 to 60. On the very day of the evacuation they kept back at the station 27others. These men are now at CANTIN or SOMAIN, where they are employedon the roads or looking after munitions in the Arras group. The othersat DECHY and GUESNIN are in the VIMY group and are making pill-boxesor railway lines. A certain number of these workers refused to carryout the work ordered, and as punishment during the summer were tied tochairs and exposed bareheaded to the full blaze of the sun. They wereoften threatened to be shot. "

 * * * * *

"After the bombardment of LILLE the Germans entered ENNETIÈRES onthe 12th October, 1914. On the next Monday 200 Uhlans occupied theCommune, and houses and haystacks were burned.... At LOMME every onewas forced to work: the Saxon Kdnt. Schoper announced that all womenwho did not obey within 24 hours would be interned: all the womenobeyed. They were employed in the making of osier-revêtement twometres high for the trenches. The men were forced to put up barbedwire near Fort Denglas, two kltrs. From the front. A few days afterthe evacuation of ENNETIÈRES the Uhlans shot a youth, Jean Leclercq, age 17, son of the gardener of Count D'Hespel, simply because they hadfound a telephone wire in the courtyard of the château. "

 * * * * *

"Informant, who has lost his right arm, was nevertheless forced towork for the Germans, notably to unload coal and to work on the roads. He had with him males from 13 to 60. Having objected because of hislost arm, he was threatened with imprisonment. At LOMME squads ofworkers were given the work of putting up barbed wire; women wereforced to make sand bags. In cases of refusal on either side the Kdr. Inflicted four or five weeks' imprisonment, to say nothing of blowswith sticks inflicted by the soldiers. In spring 1917 a number ofmen were sent from LOMME to the BEAUVIN-PROVINS region to work ondefences.... Those who refused to sign were threatened and struck withthe butts of rifles, and left in cellars sometimes filled with waterduring bombardments. Several of them came back seriously ill fromprivation. "

 * * * * *

"Young girls are separated from their mothers; there are levies madeat every moment. Sometimes these young girls have barely a few hoursbefore the moment of departure.... Several young girls have writtento say that they are very unhappy and that they sleep in camps amongstgirls of low class and condition. "

 * * * * *

"For a long time past women have been forced to work as roadlabourers. These work in the quarries and transport wood cut down bythe men in the mountain forest. A number of women and young girls havebeen removed from their families and sent in the direction of RHEIMSand RETHEL, where it is said (although this cannot be confirmed) thatthey are employed in aerodromes. "

 * * * * *

These extracts should serve to explain the mental and physicaldepression of the returning exiles. They have been bullied out of thedesire to live and out of all possession of either their bodies ortheir souls. They have been treated like cattle, and as cattle theyhave come to regard themselves. Lazaruses--that's what they are! Theunmerciful Boche, having killed and buried them, drags them outfrom the tomb and compels them to go through the antics of life. LeGallienne's poem comes to my mind:

 "Loud mockers in the angry street Say Christ is crucified again-- Twice pierced those gospel-bearing feet, Twice broken that great heart in vain.... "

That is all true at Evian. But when I see the American men and girls, leaning over the Boche babies in their cots and living their heartsinto the hands and feet of the spiritually maimed, the last two linesof the poem become true for me:

 "I hear, and to myself I say, 'Why, Christ walks with me every day. '"

The work of the American Red Cross at Evian is largely devotedto children. It provides all the ambulance transportation for therepatriés, to and from the station. American doctors and nurses doall the examining of the children at the Casino. On an average, fourhundred pass through their hands daily. The throat, nose, teeth, glands and skin of each child are inspected. If the child is suspectedor attacked by any disease, it is immediately segregated and sent tothe American hospital. If the infection is only local or necessitatesfurther examination, the child and its family are summoned to presentthemselves at the American dispensary next day. Every precautionis employed to prevent the spread of infection--particularly theinfection of tuberculosis. Evian is the gateway from Germany throughwhich disease and death may be carried to the furthest limits ofFrance. Very few of the repatriés are really healthy. It would bea wonder if they were after the privations through which they havepassed. All of them are weakened in vitality and broken down instamina. Many of them have no homes to go to and have to be sent todepartments of the interior and the south. If they were sent in anunhealthy condition, it would mean the spread of epidemics. 

The Red Cross has a large children's hospital at Evian in the villasand buildings of the Hôtel Chatelêt. This hospital deals with thecontagious cases. It has others, especially one at the Château desHalles, thirty kilometers from Lyons, which take the devitalised, convalescent and tubercular cases. The Château des Halles is asplendidly built modern building, arranged in an ideal way forhospital use. It stands at the head of a valley, with an all day sunexposure and large grounds. Close to the Château are a number of smallvillages in which it is possible to lodge the repatriés in families. This is an important part of the repatrié's problem, as after theirmany partings they fight fiercely against any further separations. Oneof the chief reasons for having the Convalescent Hospital out in thecountry is that families can be quartered in the villages and so kepttogether. 

The pathetic hunger of these people for one another after they havebeen so long divided, was illustrated for me on my return journey toParis. A man of the tradesman class had been to Evian to meet his wifeand his boy of about eleven. They were among the lucky ones, for theyhad a home to go to. He was not prepossessing in appearance. He had aweak face, lined with anxiety, broken teeth and limp hair. His wife, as so often happens in French marriages, had evidently been themanageress. She was unbeautiful in rusty black; her clothes were theill-assorted make-shifts of the civilian who escapes from Germany. Hereyes were shifty with the habit of fear and sunken with the wearinessof crying. The boy was a bright little fellow, full of defiance andanecdotes of his recent captors. 

When I entered the carriage, they were sitting huddled together--theman in the middle, with an arm about either of them. He kept pressingthem to him, kissing them by turn in a spasmodic unrestrained fashion, as if he still feared that he might lose them and could not convincehimself of the happy truth that they were once again together. Thewoman did not respond to his embraces; she seemed indifferent to him, indifferent to life, indifferent to any prospects. The boy seemed fondof his father, but embarrassed by his starved demonstrativeness. 

I listened to their conversation. The man's talk was all of thefuture--what splendid things he would do for them. How, as longas they lived, he would never waste a moment from their sides. Itappeared that he had been at Tours, on a business trip when the warbroke out, and could not get back to Lille before the Germans arrivedthere. For three and a half years he had lived in suspense, whileeverything he loved had lain behind the German lines. The womancontributed no suggestions to his brilliant plans. She clung to him, but she tried to divert his affection. When she spoke it was of smalldomestic abuses: the exorbitant prices she had had to pay for food;the way in which the soldiery had stolen her pots and pans; theinsolence she had experienced when she had lodged complaints againstthe men before their officers. And the boy--he wanted to be a poilu. He kept inventing revenges he would take in battle, if the war lastedlong enough for his class to be called out. As darkness fell theyceased talking. I began to realise that in three and a half years theyhad lost contact. They were saying over and over the things thathad been said already; they were trying to prevent themselves fromacknowledging that they had grown different and separate. The onlybond which held them as a family was their common loneliness and fearthat, if they did not hold together, their intolerable lonelinesswould return. When the light was hooded, the boy sank his hand againsthis father's shoulder; the woman nestled herself in the fold of hisarm, with her head turned away from him, that he might not kiss her sooften. The man sat upright, his eyes wide open, watching them sleepingwith a kind of impotent despair. They were together; and yet theywere not together. He had recovered them; nevertheless, he had notrecovered them. Those Boches, the devils, they had kept something;they had only sent their bodies back. All night long, whenever Iwoke up as the train halted, the little man was still guarding themjealously as a dog guards a bone, and staring morosely at the blankwall of the future. 

These were among the lucky ones; the boy and woman had had a man tomeet them. Somewhere in France there was protection awaiting them andthe shelter of a house that was not charity. And yet ... All nightwhile they slept the man sat awake, facing up to facts. These wereamong the lucky ones! That is Evian; that is the tragedy and need ofFrance as you see it embodied in individuals. 

 * * * * *

The total number of repatriés and réfugiés now in France is said tototal a million and a half. The repatriés are the French civilians whowere captured by the Germans in their advance and have since been sentback. The réfugiés are the French civilians from the devastated areas, who have always remained on the Allies' side of the line. The réfugiésare divided into two classes: réfugiés proper--that is fugitivesfrom the front, who fled for the most part at the time of the Germaninvasion; and évacués--those who were sent out of the war zone by themilitary authorities. Naturally a large percentage of this million anda half have lost everything and, irrespective of their former worldlyposition, now live with the narrowest margin between themselves andstarvation. The French Government has treated them with generosity, but in the midst of a war it has had little time to devote toeducating them into being self-supporting. A great number offunds have been privately raised for them in France; many separateorganisations for their relief have been started. The American RedCross is making this million and a half people its special care, andto do so is co-operating directly with the French Government and withexisting French civilian projects. Its action is dictated by mercyand admiration, but in results this policy is the most far-seeingstatesmanship. A million and a half plundered people, if neglected andallowed to remain downhearted, are likely to constitute a danger tothe morale of the bravest nation. Again, from the point of view ofafter-war relations, to have been generous towards those who havesuffered is to have won the heart of France. The caring for the Frenchrepatriates and refugees is a definite contribution to the winning ofthe war. 

The French system of handling this human stream of tragedy is tosend the sick to local hospitals and the exhausted to the _maisonde repos_. The comparatively healthy are allowed to be claimed byfriends; the utterly homeless are sent to some prefecture remote fromthe front-line. The prefects in turn distribute them among towns andvillages, lodging them in old barracks, casinos and any buildingswhich war-conditions have made vacant. The adults are allowed by theGovernment a franc and a half per day, and the children seventy-fivecentimes. 

The armies have drained France of her doctors since the war; untilthe Americans came, the available medical attention was whollyinadequate to the civilian population. The American Red Cross is nowestablishing dispensaries through the length and breadth of France. In country districts, inaccessible to towns, it is inauguratingautomobile-dispensaries which make their rounds on fixed andadvertised days. In addition to this it has started a child-welfaremovement, the aim of which is to build up the birth-rate and lower theinfant mortality by spreading the right kind of knowledge among thewomen and girls. 

The condition of the refugees and repatriates, thrust into communitiesto which they came as paupers and crowded into buildings which werenever planned for domestic purposes, has been far from enviable. InSeptember, 1917, the American Red Cross handed over the solving ofthis problem to one of its experts who had organised the aid given toSan Francisco after the earthquake, and who had also had charge of therelief-work necessitated by the Ohio floods at Dayton. Co-operatingwith the French, houses partially constructed at the outbreak of warwere now completed and furnished, and approximately three thousandfamilies were supplied with homes and privacy. The start madeproved satisfactory. Supplies, running into millions of francs, wererequisitioned, and the plan for getting the people out of publicbuildings into homes was introduced to the officials of most of thedepartments of France. Delegates were sent out by the Red Cross toundertake the organisation of the work. Money was apportioned for thesupplying of destitute families with furniture and the instrumentsof trade; the object in view was not to pauperise them, but to affordthem the opportunity for becoming self-supporting. Re-constructionwork in those devastated areas which have been won back from the Bochewas hurried forward in order that the people who had been uprootedfrom the soil might be returned to it and, in being returned to theirown particular soil, might recover their place in life and theirbalance. 

I visited the devastated areas of the Pas-de-Calais, Somme, Oise andAisne and saw what is being accomplished. This destroyed territoryis roughly one hundred miles long by thirty miles broad at itswidest point. In 1912 one-quarter of the wheat produced in Franceand eighty-seven per cent. Of the beet crop employed in the nationalindustry of sugar-making, were raised in these departments of thenorth. The invasion has diminished the national wheat production bymore than a half. It is obvious, then, that in getting these districtsonce more under cultivation two birds are being killed with one stone:the refugee is being made a self-supporting person--an economic assetinstead of a dead weight--and the tonnage problem is being solved. If more food is grown behind the Western Front, grain-ships can bereleased for transporting the munitions of war from America. 

The French Government had already made a start in this undertakingbefore America came into the war. As early as 1914 it voted threehundred million francs and appointed a group of _sous-préfets_ tosee to the dispensing of it. Little by little, as the Huns have beendriven back, the wealthier inhabitants, whose money was safe in Parisbanks, have returned to these districts and opened _oeuvres_ for thepoorer inhabitants. Many of them have lost their sons and husbands;they find in their daily labour for others worse off than themselvesan escape from life-long despair. Misfortune is a matter of comparisonand contrast. We are all of us unhappy or fortunate according to ourstandards of selfishness and our personal interpretation of our lot. These patriots are bravely turning their experience of sorrow into thematerials of service. They can speak the one and only word which makesa bond of sympathy between the prosperous and the broken-hearted, "I, too, have suffered. " I came across one such woman in the neighbourhoodof Villequier-au-Mont. She was a woman of title and a royalist. Herestates had been laid waste by the invasion and all her men-folk, saveher youngest son, were dead. Directly the Hun withdrew last spring, she came back to the wilderness which had been created and commencedto spend what remained of her fortune upon helping her peasants. Thesepeasants had been the hewers of wood and drawers of water for the Hunfor three and a half years. When his armies retreated, they took withthem the girls and the young men, leaving behind only the weaklings, the children and the aged. Word came to the Red Cross official ofthe district that her remaining son had been killed in action; he wasasked to break the news to her. He went out to her ruined villageand found her sitting among a group of women in the shell of a house, teaching them to make garments for their families. She was pleased tosee him; she was in need of more materials. She had been intendingto make the journey to see him herself. She was full of her work andenthusiastic over the valiance of her people. He led her aside andtold her. She fell silent. Her face quivered--that was all. Then shecompleted her list of requirements and went back to her women. Inliving to comfort other people's grief, she had no time to nurse herown. 

These "oeuvres, " or groups of workers, settle down in a shatteredvillage or township. The military authorities place the township intheir charge. They at once commence to get roofs on to such housesas still have walls. They supply farm-implements, poultry, rabbits, carts, seeds, plants, etc. They import materials from Paris andform sewing classes for the women and girls. They encourage thetrades-people to re-start their shops and lend them the necessaryinitial capital. What is perhaps most valuable, they lure theterror-stricken population out of their caves and dug-outs, and setthem an example of hope and courage. Some of the best pioneer workof this sort has been done by the English Society of Friends who now, together with the Friends of the United States, have become a partof the Bureau of the Department of Civil Affairs of the American RedCross. 

The American Red Cross works through the "oeuvres" which it foundalready operating in the devastated area; it places its financialbacking at their disposal, its means of motor transport and itspersonnel; it grafts on other "oeuvres, " operating in newly taken overvillages, in which Americans, French and English work side by sidefor the common welfare; at strategic points behind the lines ithas established a chain of relief warehouses, fully equipped withmotor-lorries and cars. These warehouses furnish everything that anagricultural people starting life afresh can require--food, clothes, blankets, beds, mattresses, stoves, kitchen utensils, reapers, binders, mowing-machines, threshing-machines, garden-tools, soap, tooth brushes, etc. If you can conceive of yourself as having been aprosperous farmer and waking up one morning broken in heart and dirtyin person, with your barns, live-stock, daughters, sons, everythinggone--not a penny left in the world--you can imagine your necessities, and then form some picture of the fore-thought that goes to therunning of a Red Cross warehouse. 

But the poverty of these people is not the worst condition that theRed Cross workers have to tackle; money can always replace money. Hope, trust, affection and a genial belief in the world's goodnesscannot be transplanted into another man's heart in exchange forbitterness by even the most lavish giver. I can think of nomodern parallel for their blank despair; the only eloquence whichapproximately expresses it is that of Job, centuries old, "Why islight given to a man whose way is hid and whom God hath hedged in? Mysighing cometh before I eat. My roarings are poured out like waters. My harp is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of themthat weep. I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was Iquiet; yet trouble came. "

This hell which the Hun has created, beggars any description ofDante. [1] It is still more appalling to remember that the externalhell which one sees, does not represent one tithe of the drearinesswhich lies hidden behind the eyes of the inhabitants. To imagine amidsuch scenes is to paralyse compassion with agony. The craving, neverfar from one's thoughts, is the age-old desire, "O that one mightplead with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!"

[Footnote 1: Since this was written and just as I am returning tothe front, the Hun has set to work to create this hell for the secondtime. Most of the places referred to below are once more within theenemy country and all the mercy of the American Red Cross has beenwiped out. ]

I started out on my trip in a staff-car from a city well behind thelines. In the first half hour of the journey the country was greenand pleasant. We passed some cavalry officers galloping across a brownfield; birds were battling against a flurrying wind; high overheadan aeroplane sailed serenely. There was a sense of life, motion andexhilaration abroad, but only for the first half hour of our journey. Then momentarily a depression grew up about us. Fields and trees werebecoming dead, as if a swarm of locusts had eaten their way acrossthem. Greenness was vanishing. Houses were becoming untenanted; therewere holes in the walls of many of them, through which one gainedglimpses of the sky. Here, by the road-side, we passed a cluster ofinsignificant graves. Then, almost without warning, the barbed-wireentanglements commenced, and the miles and miles of abandonedtrenches. This, not a year ago from the day on which I write, was theHun's country. Last spring, in an attempt to straighten his line, heretreated from it. Our offensives on the Somme had converted his Frontinto a dangerous salient. 

We are slowing down; the road is getting water-logged and full ofholes. The skull of a dead town grows up on the horizon. Even at thisdistance the light behind empty windows glares malevolently like thenothingness in vacant sockets. A horror is over everything. The horroris not so much due to the destruction as to the total absence of anysigns of life. One man creeping through the landscape would make itseem more kindly. I have been in desolated towns often, but there werealways the faces of our cheery Tommies to smile out from cellars andgaps in the walls. From here life is banished utterly. The battle-linehas retired eastward; one can hear the faint rumble of the guns attimes. No civilian has come to re-inhabit this unhallowed spot. 

We enter what were once its streets. They are nothing now but craterswith boards across them. On either side the trees lie flat along theground, sawn through within a foot of the roots. What landmarks remainare the blackened walls of houses, cracked and crashed in by fallingroofs. The entire place must have been given over to explosion andincendiarism before the Huns departed. One stands in awe of suchcompleteness of savagery; one begins to understand what is meant bythe term "frightfulness. " As far as eye can reach there is nothing tobe seen but decayed fangs, protruding from a swamp of filth, coveredwith a green slime where water has accumulated. This is not theunavoidable ruin of shell-fire. No battle was fought here. Thedemolition was the wanton spite of an enemy who, because he could nothold the place, was determined to leave nothing serviceable behind. With such masterly thoroughness has he done his work that the spotcan never be re-peopled. The surrounding fields are too poisoned andchurned up for cultivation. The French Government plans to plant aforest; it is all that can be done. As years go by, the kindlinessof Nature may cause her to forget and cover up the scars of hatredwith greenness. Then, perhaps, peasant lovers will wander here andrefashion their dreams of a chivalrous world. Our generation willbe dead by that time; throughout our lives this memorial to"frightfulness" will remain. 

We have left the town and are out in the open country. It is cleanand unharried. Man can murder orchards and habitations--the thingswhich man plants and makes; he finds it more difficult to stranglethe primal gifts of Nature. All along by the roadside the cementtelegraph-posts have been broken off short; some of them lie flatalong the ground, others hang limply in the bent shape of hairpins. Very often we have to make a detour where a steel bridge has beenblown up; we cross the gulley over an improvised affair of struts andplanks, and so come back into the main roadway. Every now and thenwe pass steam-tractors at work, ploughing huge fields into regularfurrows. The French Department of Agriculture purchased in Americanineteen teams of ten tractors apiece in the autumn of last year. TheAmerican Red Cross has supplied others. The fields of this districtare unfenced--the farmers used to live together in villages; sothe work is made easy. It is possible to throw a number of holdingstogether and to apply to France the same wholesale mechanical meansof wheat-growing that are employed on the prairies of Canada. Allthe cattle and horses have been carried off into Germany. All thefarm-implements have been destroyed--and destroyed with a surprisingingenuity. The same parts were destroyed in each instrument, so thatan entire instrument could not be reconstructed. The farms could nothave been brought under cultivation this year, had not the Governmentand the Red Cross lent their assistance. 

We are approaching Noyon, the birthplace of Calvin. This is one ofthe few towns the Hun spared in his retreat; he spared it not out ofa belated altruism, but purely to serve his own convenience. Therewere some of the French civilians who weren't worth transporting toGermany. They would be too weak, or too old, or too young to earntheir keep when he got them there. These he sorted out, irrespectiveof their family ties, and herded from the surrounding districts intoNoyon. They were crowded into the houses and ordered under pain ofdeath not to come out until they were given permission. They werefurther ordered to shutter all their windows and not to look out. 

As an old lady, who narrated the story, said, "We had no idea, Monsieur, what was to happen. _Les Boches_ had been with us for nearlythree years; it never entered our heads that they were leaving. Whenthey took the last of our young girls from us and all who were strongamong our men, it was something that they had done so often and sooften. When they made us hide in our houses, we thought it was onlyto prevent a disturbance. It is not easy to see your boys and girlsmarched away into slavery--Monsieur will understand that. Sometimes, on former occasions, the mothers had attacked _les Boches_ and theyoung girls had become hysterical; we thought that it was to avoidsuch scenes that we were shut up in our houses. When darkness fell, we sat in our rooms without any lights, for they also were forbidden. All night long through our streets we heard the endless trampingof battalions, the clattering wheels of guns and limbers, the sharporders, the halting and the marching taken up afresh. Towards dawneverything grew silent. At first it would be broken occasionally bythe hurried trot of cavalry or the shuffling footsteps of a straggler. Then it grew into the absolute silence of death. It was nerve-rackingand terrible. One could almost hear the breathing of the listeningpeople in all the other houses. I do not know how time went or whatwas the hour. I could endure the suspense no longer. They might killme, but ... Ah well, at my age after nearly three years with 'lesBoches, ' killing is a little matter! I crept down the passage and drewback the bolts. I was very gentle; a sentry might hear me. I openedthe door just a crack. I expected to hear a rifle-shot ring out, butnothing happened. I opened it wider, and saw that the street was emptyand that it was broad daylight. Then I waited--I do not know how longI waited. I crouched against the wall, huddled with terror. All thistook much longer in the doing than in the telling. At last I couldbear myself no longer. I tiptoed out on to the pavement--and, Monsieurwill believe me, I expected to drop dead. But no one disturbed me. Then I heard a rustling. Doors everywhere were opening stealthily, ah, so stealthily! Some one else tiptoed out, and some one else, and someone else. We stood there staring, aghast at our daring. Suddenly werealised what had happened. The brutes had gone. We were free. It wasindescribable, what followed--we ran together, weeping and embracing. At first we wept for gladness; soon we wept for sorrow. Our youth haddeparted; we were all old women or very ancient men. Two hours laterour poilus came, like a blue-grey wave of laughter, fighting theirway through the burning country that those swine had left in a sea ofsmoke and flames. "

And so that was why the Hun spared Noyon. But if he spared Noyon, he spared little else. [2] Every village between here and the presentfront line has been levelled; every fruit-tree cut down. The wilfulwickedness and pettiness of the crime stir one's heart to pity andhis soul to white-hot anger. The people who did this must makepayment in more than money; to settle such a debt blood is required. American soldiers who came to Europe to do a job and with no decideddetestation of the Hun, are being taught by such landscapes. They knownow why they came. The wounds of France are educating them. 

[Footnote 2: Goodness knows where the "present Front-line" may be bythe time this book is published. I visited Noyon in February, 1918, just before the big Hun offensive commenced. ]

There has been a scheme proposed in America under which certainindividual cities and towns in the States shall make themselvesresponsible for the re-building of certain individual cities andtowns in the devastated areas. The scheme is noble; it has only onedrawback, namely that it specialises effort and tends to ignore theimmensity of the problem as a whole. I visited one of these towns--itis a town for which Philadelphia has made itself responsible. I wishthe people of Philadelphia might get a glimpse of the task they haveundertaken. There is a church-spire still standing; that is aboutall. The rest is a pile of bricks. In the midst of this havoc somePhiladelphia ladies are living, one of whom is a nurse. They run adispensary for the people who keep house for the most part in cellarsand holes in the ground. A doctor visits them to hold a clinic everso often. They have a little warehouse, in which they keep thenecessities for immediate relief work. They have a rest hut forsoldiers. They employ whatever civilian labour they can hire for theroofing of some of the least damaged cottages; for this temporaryreconstruction they provide the materials. When I was there, the placewas well within range of enemy shell-fire. The approach had to be madeby way of camouflaged roads. The sole anxiety of these brave womenwas that on account of their nearness to the front-line, the militarymight compel them to move back. In order to safeguard themselvesagainst this and to create a good impression, they were making astrong point of entertaining whatever officers were billeted inthis vicinity. Their effort to remain in this rural Gomorrah was ascourageous as it was pathetic. "The people need us, " they said, andthen, "you don't think we'll be moved back, do you?" I thought theywould, and I didn't think that the grateful officers would be able toprevent it--they were subalterns and captains for the most part. "Butwe once had a major to tea, " they said. "A major!" I exclaimed, tryingto look impressed, "Oh well, that makes a difference!"

There was one unit I wished especially to visit; it was a unitconsisting entirely of women, sent over and financed by a women'scollege. When I was in America last October and heard that they werestarting, I made up my mind that they were doomed to disappointment. I pictured the battlefield of the Somme as I had last seen it--a seaof mud stretching for miles, furrowed by the troughs of batteredtrenches, pitted every yard with shell-holes and smeared over withthe wreckage of what once were human bodies. I could not imagine whatuseful purpose women could serve amid such surroundings. It seemedto me indecent that they should be allowed to go there. They weregoing to do reconstruction, I was told. Reconstruction! you can'treconstruct towns and villages the very foundations of which have beenburied. There is a Bible phrase which expresses such annihilation, "The place thereof shall know it no more. " Yes, only the names remainin one's memory--the very sites have been covered up and the contoursof the landscape re-dug with high explosives. It took millions ofpounds to work this havoc. Men tunnelled under-ground and sprung mineswithout warning. They climbed like birds of prey, into the heavens tohurl death from the clouds. They lined up their guns, tier upon tier, almost axle to axle in places, and at a given sign rained a delugeof corruption on a country miles in front, which they could not evendiscern. The infantry went over the top throwing bombs and piledthemselves up into mounds of silence. Nations far away toiled day andnight in factories--and all that they might achieve this repellantdesolation. The innocence of the project made one smile--a handful ofwomen sailing from America to reconstruct! To reconstruct will taketen times more effort than was required to destroy. More than eighthundred years ago William the Norman burnt his way through the NorthCountry to Chester. Yorkshire has not yet recovered; it is still awind-swept moorland. This women's college in America hoped to repairin our lifetime a ruin a million times more terrible. Their couragewas depressing, it so exceeded the possible. They might love onevillage back to life, but.... That is exactly what they are doing. 

I arrived at Grécourt on an afternoon in January. It is here that thewomen of the Smith College Unit have taken up their tenancy. We hadextraordinary difficulty in finding the place. The surrounding countryhad been blasted and scorched by fire. There was no one left of whomwe could enquire. Everything had perished. Barns, houses, everythinghabitable had been blown up by the departing Hun. As a study in thepainstaking completion of a purpose the scenes through which wepassed almost called for admiration. Berlin had ordered her armies todestroy everything before withdrawing; they had obeyed with a lovingthoroughness. The world has never seen such past masters in the artof demolition. Ever since they invaded Belgium, their hand has beenimproving. In the neighbourhood of Grécourt they have equalled, if notsurpassed, their own best efforts. I would suggest to the Kaiser thatthis manly performance calls for a distribution of iron crosses. It istrue that his armies were beaten and retiring; but does not that factrather enhance their valour? They were retiring, yet there were thosewho were brave enough to delay their departure till they had achievedthis final victory over old women and children to the lasting honourof their country. Such heroes are worthy to stand beside the sinkersof the _Lusitania_. It is not just that they should go unrecorded. 

In the midst of this hell I came across a tumbled château. Its roof, its windows, its stairways were gone; only the crumbling shell of itsformer happiness was left standing. A high wall ran about its grounds. The place must have been pleasant with flower-gardens once. There wasan impressive entrance of wrought-iron, a porter's lodge and a broaddriveway. At the back I found rows of little wood-huts. There was afragrance of log-fires burning. I was glad of that, for I had heardof the starving cold these women had had to endure through the firstwinter months of their tenure. On tapping at a door, I found theentire colony assembled. It was tea-time and Sunday. Ten out of theseventeen who form the colony were present. A box-stove, such aswe use in our pioneer shacks in Canada, was throwing out a glow ofcheeriness. Candles had been lighted. Little knicknacks of femininetaste had been hung here and there to disguise the bareness of thewalls. A bed, in one corner, was carefully disguised as a couch. Save for the fact that there was no glass in the window--glassbeing unobtainable in France at present--one might easily havepersuaded himself that he was back in America in the room of agirl-undergraduate. 

The method of my greeting furthered this illusion. Americans, bothmen and women, have an extraordinary self-poise, a gift for remainingnormal in the most abnormal surroundings. They refuse to allowthemselves to be surprised by any upheaval of circumstances. "I shouldworry, " they seem to be saying, and press straight on with the jobin hand. There was one small touch which made the environment seemeven more friendly and unexceptional. One of the girls, on beingintroduced, promptly read to me a letter which she had just receivedfrom my sister in America. It made this oasis in an encirclingwilderness seem very much a part of a neighbourly world. This girl isan example of the varied experiences which have trained American womeninto becoming the nursemaids of the French peasantry. 

She was visiting relations in Liége when the war broke out. On theSunday she went for a walk on the embattlements and was turned back. Baulked in this direction, she strolled out towards the country andfound men digging trenches. That was the first she knew that war wasrumoured. On the Tuesday, two days later, Hun shells were detonatingon the house-tops. She was held prisoner in Liége for some monthsafter the Forts had fallen and saw more than all the crimes againsthumanity that the Bryce Report has recorded. At last she disguisedherself and contrived her escape into Holland. From there she workedher way back to America and now she is at Grécourt, starting shops inthe villages, educating the children, and behaving generally as if torespond to the "Follow thou me" of the New Testament was an entirelyunheroic proceeding for a woman. 

And what are these women doing at Grécourt? To condense their purposeinto a phrase, I should say that by their example they are bringingsanity back into the lives of the French peasants. That is what theAmerican Fund for French Wounded is doing at Blérancourt, what allthese reconstruction units are doing in the devastated areas, and whatthe American Red Cross is doing on a much larger scale for the wholeof France. At Grécourt they have a dispensary and render medical aid. If the cases are grave, they are sent to the American Hospital atNesle. They hunt out the former tradespeople among the refugees andencourage them to re-start their shops, lending them the money forthe purpose. If the men are captives in Germany, then their wives arehelped to carry on the business in their absence and for their sakes. Groups of mothers are brought together and set to work on makingclothes for themselves and their children. Schools are opened sothat the children may be more carefully supervised. Two of the girlsat Grécourt have learnt to plough, and are instructing the peasantwomen. Cows are kept and a dairy has been started to provide theunder-nourished babies of the district. An automobile-dispensary issent out from the hospital at Nesle to visit the remoter districts. Ithas a seat along one side for the patient and the nurse. Over the seatis a rack for medicine and instruments. On the opposite side is arack for splints and surgical dressings. On the floor of the car ashower-bath is arranged, which is so compact that it can be carriedinto the house where the water is to be heated. The water is put intoa tub on a wooden base; while the doctor manipulates the pump for theshower, the nurse does the scrubbing. Most of the diseases among thechildren are due to dirt; the importance of keeping clean, which suchcolonies as that at Grécourt are impressing on all the people whomthey serve, is doing much to improve the general state of health. Inthis direction, as in so many others, the most valuable contributionthat they are making to their districts is not material and financial, but mental--the contribution of example and suggestion. Seventeenwomen cannot re-build in a day an external civilisation which has beenblotted out by the savagery of a nation; but they can and they arere-building the souls of the human derelicts who have survived thesavagery. This war is going to be won not by the combination ofnations which has most men and guns, but by the side which possessesthe highest spiritual qualities. The same is true of the countrieswhich will wipe out the effects of war most quickly when the war isended. The first countries to recover will be those which fight onin a new way, after peace has been signed, for the same ideals forwhich they have shed their blood. The sight of these American women, living helpfully and voluntarily for the sake of others among hideoussurroundings, is a perpetual reminder to the dispirited refugees that, whatever else is lost, valiance and loyalty still survive. 

From Grécourt I went farther afield to Croix, Y and Matigny. Herea young architect is in charge of the reconstruction. No attemptis being made at present to re-build the farms entirely. Labour isdifficult to obtain--it is all required for military purposes. Thesame applies to materials. Patching is the best that can be done. Justto get a roof over one corner of a ruin is as much as can be hopedfor. Until that is done the people have to live in cellars, inshell-holes, in verminous dug-outs like beasts of prey or savages. Their position is far more deplorable than that of Indians, for theyonce knew the comforts of civilisation. For instance, I visited afarmer who before the war was a millionaire in French money. Many ofthe farmers of this district were; their acreages were large even byprairie standards. The American Red Cross has managed to reconstructone room for him in a pile of debris which was once a spacious house. There he lives with his old wife, who, during the Hun occupation, became nearly blind and almost completely paralytic. His sons anddaughters have been swept beyond his knowledge by the departingarmies. Before the Huns left, he had to stand by and watch themuselessly lay waste his home and possessions. His trees are cut down. His barns are laid flat. His cattle are behind the German lines. Atthe age of seventy, he is starting all afresh and working harder thanever he did in his life. The young architect of the Red Cross visitshim often. They sit in the little room of nights, erecting barns andhouses more splendid than those that have vanished, but all in thegreen quiet of the untested future. They shall be standing by the timethe captive sons come back. It is a game at which they play for thesake of the blinded mother; she listens smilingly, nodding her oldhead, her frail hands folded in her lap. 

These pictures which I have painted are typical of some of the thingsthat the American Red Cross is doing. They are isolated examples, which by no means cover all its work. There are the rolling canteenswhich it has instituted, which follow the French armies. There arethe rest houses it has built on the French line of communications for_poilus_ who are going on leave or returning. There is the farm forthe mutilated, where they are taught to be specialists in certainbranches of agriculture, despite their physical curtailments. Thereis the great campaign against tuberculosis which it is waging. Thereare its well-conceived warehouses, stored with medical supplies andmilitary and relief necessities, spreading in a great net-work ofusefulness and connected by ambulance transport throughout the wholeof the stricken part of France. There are its hospitals, both militaryand civil. There is the "Lighthouse" for men wounded in battle, founded by Miss Holt in Paris. 

I visited this Lighthouse; it is a place infinitely brave andpathetic. Most of the men were picked heroes at the war; they weartheir decorations in proof of it. They are greater heroes than evernow. Nothing has more deeply moved me than my few hours among thosesightless eyes. In many cases the faces are hideously marred, theeyelids being quite grown together. In several cases besides the eyes, the arms or legs have gone. I have talked and written a good dealabout the courage which this war has inspired in ordinary men; but thecourage of these blinded men, who once were ordinary, leaves me silentand appalled. They are happy--how and why I cannot understand. Mostof them have been taught at the Lighthouse how to overcome theirdisability and are earning their living as weavers, stenographers, potters, munition-workers. Quite a number of them have familiesto support. The only complaint that is made against them by theirbrother-workmen is that they are too rapid; they set too strenuousa pace for the men with eyes. It is a fact that in all trades wheresensitiveness of touch is an asset, blindness has increased theirefficiency. This is peculiarly so at the Sévres pottery-works where Isaw them making the moulds for retorts. A soldier, who was teaching aseeing person Braille, explained his own quickness of perception whenhe exclaimed, "Ah, madame, it is your eyes which prevent you fromseeing!"

I heard some of the stories of the men. There was a captain who, afterhe had been wounded and while there was yet time to save his sight, insisted on being taken to his General that he might inform him abouta German mine. When his mission was completed, his chance of seeingwas forever ended. 

There was a lieutenant who was blinded in a raid and left for deadout in No Man's Land. Just before he became unconscious, he placedtwo lumps of earth in line in the direction which led back to hisown trenches. He knew the direction by the sound of the retreatingfootsteps. Whenever he came to himself he groped his way a littlenearer to France and before he fainted again, registered the directionwith two more lumps of earth placed in line. It took him a day tocrawl back. 

There was another man who illustrated in a finer way that saying, "Itis your eyes which prevent you from seeing. " This man before the warwas a village-priest, and no credit to his calling. He had a sisterwho had spent her youth for him and worshipped him beyond everythingin the world. He took her adoration brutally for granted. At theoutbreak of hostilities he joined the army, serving bravely in theranks till he was hopelessly blinded. Having always been a thoroughlyselfish man, his privation drove him nearly to madness. He had alwaysused the world; now for the first time he had been used by it. Hisviciousness broke out in blasphemy; he hated both God and man. He madeno distinction between people in the mass and the people who tried tohelp him. His whole desire was to inflict as much pain as he himselfsuffered. When his sister came to visit him, he employed everyingenuity of word and gesture to cause her agony. Do what she would, he refused to allow her love either to reach or comfort him. She wasonly a simple peasant woman. In her grief and loneliness she thoughtmatters out and arrived at what seemed to her a practical solution. On her next visit to the hospital she asked to see the doctor. She wastaken to him and made her request. "I love my brother, " she said; "Ihave always given him everything. He has lost his eyes and he cannotendure it. Because I love him, I could bear it better. I have beenthinking, and I am sure it is possible: I want you to remove my eyesand to put them into his empty sockets. "

When the priest was told of her offer, he laughed derisively at herfor a fool. Then the reason she had given for her intended sacrificewas told to him, "Because I love him, I could bear it better. " He fellsilent. All that day he refused food; in the eternal darkness, muffledby his bandages, he was arriving at the truth: she had been willingto suffer what he was now suffering, because she loved him. The handof love would have made the burden bearable and, if for her, why notfor himself? At last, after years of refusal, the simplicity of hertenderness reached and touched him. Presently he was discharged fromhospital and taken in hand by the teachers of the blind, who taughthim to play the organ. One day his sister came and led him back to hisvillage-parish. Before the war, by his example, he was a danger toGod and man; now he sets a very human example of sainthood, labouringwithout ceasing for others more fortunate than himself. He hasincreased his efficiency for service by his blindness. Of him itis absolutely true that it was his eyes that prevented him fromseeing--from seeing the splendour that lay hidden in himself, no lessthan in his fellow creatures. 

So far I have sketched in the main what the war of compassion isdoing for the repatriés--the captured French civilians sent back fromGermany--and for the refugees of the devastated areas, who have eitherreturned to their ruined farms and villages or were abandoned asuseless when the Hun retired. To complete the picture it remains todescribe what is being done for the civilian population which hasalways lived in the battle area of the French armies. 

The question may be asked why civilians have been allowed to livehere. Curiously enough it is due to the extraordinary humanity ofthe French Government which makes allowances for the almost religiousattachment of the peasant to his tiny plot of land; it is anattachment which is as instinctive and fiercely jealous as that ofa cat for her young. He will endure shelling, gassing and all thehorrors that scientific invention has produced; he will see hiscottage and his barns shattered by bombs and siege-guns, but he willnot leave the fields that he has tilled and toiled over, unless heis driven out at the point of the bayonet. I have been told, thoughI have never seen it, that behind quiet parts of the line, Frenchpeasants will gather in their harvest actually in full sight of theHun. Shells may be falling, but they go stolidly on with their work. There is another reason for this leniency of the Government: they haveenough refugees on their hands already and are not going in searchof further trouble, until the trouble is forced upon them bycircumstances. 

As may be imagined, these people live under physical conditions thatare terrible. They consist for the most part of women and children;the women are over-worked and the children are neglected. Skindiseases and vermin abound. Clothes are negligible. Washing is aforgotten luxury. Much havoc is wrought by asphyxiating gases whichdrift across the front-line into the back-country. To the adults areissued protective masks like those that the soldiers wear, but thechildren do not know how to use them. Many of them are orphans, andlive like little animals on roots and offal; for shelter they seekholes in the ground. The American Red Cross is specialising on itsefforts to reclaim these children, realising that whatever happens tothe adults, the children are the hope of the world. 

The part of the Front to which I went to study this work was madefamous in 1914 by the disembowellings, shootings and unspeakableindecencies that were perpetrated there. Near by is the little villagein which Sister Julie risked her life by refusing to allow her woundedto be butchered. She wears the Legion of Honour now. In the sameneighbourhood there lives a Mayor who, after having seen his youngwife murdered, protected her murderers from the lynch-law of the mobwhen next day the town was recaptured. In the same district there isa meadow where fifteen old men were done to death, while a Hun officersat under an oak-tree, drinking mocking toasts to the victims of eachnew execution. 

The influence of more than three years of warfare has not beenelevating, as far as these peasants are concerned. As early as July, a little over a month from its arrival in France, an S. O. S. Was sentout by the Préfet of the department, begging the American Red Crossto come and help. In addition to the refugees of old standing, 350children had been suddenly put into his care. He had nothing but atemporary shelter for them and his need for assistance was acute. Within a few hours the Red Cross had despatched eight workers--adoctor, nurse, bacteriologist, an administrative director and twowomen to take charge of the bedding, food and clothing. A camionetteloaded with condensed milk and other relief necessities was sent byroad. On the arrival of the party, they found the children herdedtogether in old barracks, dirty and unfurnished, with no sanitaryappliances whatsoever. The sick were crowded together with the well. Of the 350 children, twenty-one were under one year of age, and therest between one and eight years. The reason for this sudden crisiswas that the Huns were bombing the villages behind the lines withasphyxiating gas. The military authorities had therefore withdrawnall children who were too young to adjust their masks themselves, atthe same time urging their mothers to carry on the patriotic duty ofgathering in the harvest. It was the machinery of mercy which had beenbuilt up in six months about this nucleus of eight persons that I setout to visit. 

The roads were crowded with the crack troops of France--the ForeignLegion, the Tailleurs, the Moroccans--all marching in one direction, eastward to the trenches. There were rumours of something immenseabout to happen--no one knew quite what. Were we going to put on anew offensive or were we going to resist one? Many answers were given:they were all guesswork. Meanwhile, our progress was slow; we werecontinually halting to let brigades of artillery and regimentsof infantry pour into the main artery of traffic from lanes andside-roads. When we had backed our car into hedges to give themroom to pass, we watched the sea of faces. They were stern and yetlaughing, elated and yet childish, eloquent of the love of living andyet familiar with their old friend, Death. They knew that somethingbig was to be demanded of them; before the demand had been made, they had determined to give to the ultimate of their strength. Therewas a spiritual resolution about their faces which made all theirexpressions one--the uplifted expression of the unconquered soul ofFrance. That expression blotted out their racial differences. It didnot matter that they were Arabs, Negroes, Normans, Parisians; theyowned to one nationality--the nationality of martyrdom--and theymarched with a single purpose, that freedom might be restored to theworld. 

When we reached the city to which we journeyed, night had fallen. There was something sinister about our entry; we were veiled in fog, and crept through the gate and beneath the ramparts with extinguishedhead lights. Scarcely any one was abroad. Those whom we passed, loomedout of the mist in silence, passed stealthily and vanished. 

This city is among the most beautiful in France; until recently, although within range of the Hun artillery, it had been leftundisturbed. In return the French had spared an equally beautiful cityon the other side of the line. This clemency, shown towards two gemsof architecture, was the result of one of those silent bargains thatare arranged in the language of the guns. But the bargain had beenbroken by the time I arrived. Bombing planes had been over; the Alliedplanes had retaliated. Houses, emptied like cart-loads of bricks intothe street, were significant of the ruin that was pending. Any momentthe orchestra of destruction might break into its overture. Withoutcessation one could hear a distant booming. The fiddlers of death weretuning up. 

Early next morning I went to see the Préfet. He is an old man, whosecourage has made him honoured wherever the French tongue is spoken. Others have thought of their own safety and withdrawn into theinterior. Never from the start has his sense of duty wavered. Nightand day he has laboured incessantly for the refugees, whom he refersto always as "my suffering people. " He kept me waiting for sometime. Directly I entered he volunteered the explanation: he had justreceived word from the military authorities that the whole of hiscivil population must be immediately evacuated. To evacuate a civilpopulation means to tear it up and transplant it root and branch, withno more of its possession than can be carried as hand-baggage. Some75, 000 people would be made homeless directly the Préfet published theorder. 

It was a dramatic moment, full of tragedy. I glanced out into thesquare filled with wintry sunlight. I took note of the big gold gatesand the monuments. I watched the citizens halting here and there tochat, or going about their errands with a quiet confidence. All thiswas to be shattered; it had been decided. The same thing was to happenhere as had happened at Yprés. The bargain was off. The enemy city, the other side of the line, was to be shelled; this city had to takethe consequences. The bargain was off not only as far as the city wasconcerned, but also as regards its inhabitants' happiness. They hadhomes to-day; they would be fugitives to-morrow. Then I looked atthe old Préfet, who had to break the news to them. He was sitting athis table in his uniform of office, supporting his head in his tiredhands. 

"What are you going to do?" I asked. 

"I have called on the Croix Rouge Américaine to help me, " hesaid. "They have helped me before; they will help me again. TheseAmericans--I have never been to America--but they are my friends. Since they came, they have looked after my babies. Their doctors andnurses have worked day and night for my suffering people. They aresilent; but they do things. There is love in their hands. "

While I was still with him the Red Cross officials arrived. They hadalready wired to Paris. Their lorries and ambulances were convergingfrom all points to meet the emergency. They undertook at once to placeall their transport facilities at his disposal. They had started theirarrangements for the handling of the children. Extra personnel werebeing rushed to the spot. There was one unit already in the city. Theyhad hoped to go nearer to the Front, but on arriving had learnt thattheir permission had been cancelled. It was a bit of luck. They couldset to work at once. 

I knew this unit and went out to find it. It was composed of Americansociety girls, who had been protected all their lives from ugliness. They had sailed from New York with the vaguest ideas of the warconditions they would encounter; they believed that they were neededto do a nurse-maid's job for France. Their original purpose was tofound a crêche for the babies of women munition-workers. When theygot to Paris they found that such institutions were not wanted. Theyat once changed their programme, and asked to be allowed to taketheir crêche into the army zone and convert it into a hospital forrefugee children. There were interminable delays due to passportformalities--the delays dragged on for three months. During thosethree months they were called on for no sacrifice; they lived justas comfortably as they had done in New York and, consequently, grewdisgusted. They had sailed for France prepared to give something thatthey had never given before, and France did not seem to want it. Atlast their passports came; without taking any chances, they got outof Paris and started for the Front. Their haste was well-timed; nosooner had they departed than a message arrived, cancelling theirpermissions. They had reached the doomed city in which I was atpresent, two days before its sentence was pronounced. Within fourhours of their arrival they had had their first experience of beingbombed. Their intention had been to open their hospital in a townstill nearer to the front-line. The hospital was prepared and waitingfor them. But in the last few days the military situation had changed. A hospital so near the trenches stood a good chance of being destroyedby shell-fire; so once again the unit was held up. It volunteered toabandon its idea of running the hospital for children; it would run itas a first aid hospital for the armies. The offer was refused. Thesegirls, whose gravest interest a year ago had been the season's dancesand the latest play, were determined to experience the thrill ofsacrifice. So here they were in the doomed city, as the Red Crossofficials said, "by luck"--the very place where they were most needed. 

When I visited them, after leaving the Préfet's, they had not yetheard that they were to be allowed to stay. They had heard nothing ofthe city's sentence or of the evacuation of the civil population. Allthey knew was that the hospital, which had been appointed with theirmoney, was only a few kilometres away and that they were forbiddeneven to see it. They were gloomy with the fear that within a handfulof days they would be again walking the boulevards of Paris. Whenthe news was broken to them of the part they were to play, the fullsignificance of it did not dawn on them at once. "But we don't wantanything easy, " they complained; "this isn't the Front. " "It willbe soon, " the official told them. When they heard that they cheeredup; then their share in the drama was explained. In all probabilitythe city would soon be under constant shell-fire. Refugees would bepouring back from the forward country. The people of the city itselfhad to be helped to escape before the bombardment commenced. Theywould have to stay there taking care of the children, packing theminto lorries, driving ambulances, rendering first aid, taking thewounded and decrepit out of danger and always returning to it againthemselves. As the certainty of the risk and service was impressed onthem their faces brightened. Risk and service, that was what they mostdesired; they were girls, but they hungered to play a soldier's part. They had only dreamt of serving when they had sailed from New York. Those three months of waiting had stung their pride. It was in Paristhat the dream of risk had commenced. They would make France wantthem. Their chance had come. 

When I came out into the streets again the word was spreading. Cartswere being loaded in front of houses. Everything on wheels, fromwagons to perambulators, was being piled up. Everything on four legs, dogs, cattle, horses, was being harnessed and made to do its sharein hauling. We left the city, going back to the next point where therefugees would be cared for. On either side of the road, as far as eyecould stretch, trenches had been dug, barricades thrown up, blockadesand wire-entanglements constructed. It all lay very quiet beneath thesunlight. It seemed a kind of preposterous pretence. One could notimagine these fields as a scene of battle, sweating torture and agonyand death. I looked back at the city, one of the most beautiful inFrance, growing hazy in the distance with its spires and its ramparts. Impossible! Then I remembered the carts being hurriedly loaded andthe uplifted faces of those American girls. Where had I seen theirexpression before? Yes. Strange that they should have caught it! Theirexpression was the same as that which I had noticed on the Tailleurs, the Foreign Legion and the Moroccans--the crack troops of France.... So they had become that already! At the first hint of danger, theircourage had taken command; they had risen into soldiers. 

Through villages swarming with troops and packed with ordnancewe arrived at an old caserne, which has been converted into thechildren's hospital of the district. It is in charge of one of thefirst of America's children's specialists. While he works among therefugees, his wife, who is a sculptress, makes masks for the faciallymutilated. He has brought with him from the States some of hisstudents, but his staff is in the main cosmopolitan. One of his nursesis an Australian, who was caught at the outbreak of hostilities inAustria and because of her knowledge, despite her nationality, wasallowed to help to organise the Red Cross work of the enemy. Anotheris a French woman who wears the Croix de Guerre with the palm. Shesaved her wounded from the fury of the Hun when her village was lost, and helped to get them back to safety after it had been recaptured. The Matron is Swedish and Belgian. The ambulance-drivers are someof the American boys who saw service with the French armies. In thisgroup of workers there are as many stories as there are nationalities. 

If the workers have their stories, so have the five hundred littlepatients. This barrack, converted into a hospital, is full of babies, the youngest being only six days old when I was there. Many of thechildren have no parents. Others have lost their mothers; theirfathers are serving in the trenches. It is not always easy to find outhow they became orphans; there are such plentiful chances of losingparents who live continually under shell-fire. One little boy on beingasked where his mother was, replied gravely, "My Mama, she is dead. Les Boches, they put a gun to 'er 'ead. She is finished; I 'ave noMama. "

The unchildlike stoicism of these children is appalling. I spenttwo days among them and heard no crying. Those who are sick, liemotionless as waxen images in their cots. Those who are supposedlywell, sit all day brooding and saying nothing. When first they arrive, their faces are earth-coloured. The first thing they have to be taughtis how to be children. They have to be coaxed and induced to play;even then they soon grow weary. They seem to regard mere playing asfrivolous and indecorous; and so it is in the light of the tragediesthey have witnessed. Children of seven have seen more of horror inthree years than most old men have read about in a life-time. Manyof them have been captured by and recaptured from the Huns. They havebeen in villages where the dead lay in piles and not even the womenwere spared. They have been present while indecencies were worked upontheir mothers. They have seen men hanged, shot, bayoneted and flungto roast in burning houses. The pictures of all these things hangin their eyes. When they play, it is out of politeness to the kindAmericans; not because they derive any pleasure from it. 

Night is the troublesome time. The children hide under their beds withterror. The nurses have to go the rounds continually. If the childrenwould only cry, they would give warning. But instead, they creepsilently out from between the sheets and crouch against the floor likedumb animals. Dumb animals! That is what they are when first theyare brought in. Their most primitive instincts for the beginnings ofcleanliness seem to have vanished. They have been fished out of caves, ruined dug-outs, broken houses. They are as full of skin-diseases asthe beggar who sat outside Dives' gate, only they have had no dogs tolick their sores. They have lived on offal so long that they have thefaces of the extremely aged. And their hatred! Directly you utter theword "Boche, " all the little night-gowned figures sit up in their cotsand curse. When they have done cursing, of their own accord, they singthe Marseillaise. 

Surely if God listens to prayers of vengeance, He will answer thehusky petitions of these victims of Hun cruelty! The quiet, just, deep-seated venom of these babies will work the Hun more harm thanmany batteries. Their fathers come back from the trenches to see them. On leaving, they turn to the American nurses, "We shall fight betternow, " they say, "because we know that you are taking care of them. "

When those words are spoken, the American Red Cross knows that it isachieving its object and is winning its war of compassion. The wholedrive of all its effort is to win the war in the shortest possiblespace of time. It is in Europe to save children for the future, tore-kindle hope in broken lives, to mitigate the toll of unavoidablesuffering, but first and foremost to help men to fight better. 

IV

THE LAST WAR

_The last war!_ I heard the phrase for the first time on the eveningafter Great Britain had declared war. I was in Quebec en route forEngland, wondering whether my ship was to be allowed to sail. Therehad been great excitement all day, bands playing the Marseillaise, Frenchmen marching arm-in-arm singing, orators, gesticulating andharanguing from balconies, street-corners and the base of statues. 

Now that the blue August night was falling and every one was releasedfrom work, the excitement was redoubled. Quebec was finding in waran opportunity for carnival. Throughout all the pyramided city theTri-colour and the Union Jack were waving. At the foot of the Heights, the broad basin of the St. Lawrence was a-drift in the dusk withfluttering pennons. They looked like homing birds, settling indovecotes of the masts and rigging. 

As night deepened, Chinese lanterns were lighted and carried on polesthrough the narrow streets. Troops of merry-makers followed them, blowing horns, dragging bells, tin-cans, anything that would make anoise and express high spirits. They linked arms with girls as theymarched and were lost, laughing in the dusk. If a French reservistcould be found who was sailing in the first ship bound for theslaughter, he became the hero of the hour and was lifted shoulder highat the head of the procession. War was a brave game at which to play. This was to be a short war and a merry one. Down with the Germans! Upwith France! Hurrah for the entente cordiale!

Beneath the coronet of stars on the Heights of Abraham the spirit ofWolfe kept watch and brooded. It was under these circumstances, that Iheard the phrase for the first time--_the last war_. 

The street was blocked with a gaping crowd. All the faces were raisedto an open window, two storeys up, from which the frame had been takenout. Inside the building one could hear the pounding of machinery, for it was here that the most important paper of Quebec was printed. Across a huge white sheet a man on a hanging platform painted thelatest European cables. A cluster of electric lights illuminated himstrongly; but he was not the centre of the crowd's attention. In thewindow stood another man. Like myself he was waiting for his shipto sail, but not to England--to France. He was a returning Frenchreservist. Across the many miles of ocean the hand of duty hadstretched and touched him; he was ecstatically glad that he waswanted. In those first days this ecstasy of gladness was a little hardto understand. Thank God we all share it instinctively now. He wasspeaking excitedly, addressing the crowd. They cheered him; they werein a mood to cheer anybody. His face was thin with earnestness; hewas a spirit-man. He waved aside their applause with impatience. Hewas trying to inspire them with his own intensity. In the intervalsbetween the shouting, I caught some of his words, "I am setting outto fight the last war--the war of humanity which will bring universalpeace and friendship to the world. "

A sailor behind me spat. He was drunk and feeling the need ofsympathy. He began to explain to me the reason. He was a fireman onone of the steamers in the basin and a reservist in the British Navy. He had received his orders that day to report back in England forduty; he knew that he was going to be torpedoed on his voyage acrossthe Atlantic. How did he know? He had had a vision. Sailors always hadvisions before they were drowned. It was to combat this vision that hehad got drunk. 

I shook him off irritably. One didn't require the superstitions of analcoholic imagination to emphasize the new terror which had overtakenthe world. There was enough of fear in the air already. All thisspurious gaiety--what was it? Nothing but the chatter of lonelychildren who were afraid to listen to the silence--afraid lest theymight hear the creaking footstep of death upon the stairs. And thesecandles, lighting up the fringes of the night--they were nothing but avain pretence that the darkness had not gathered. 

But this spirit-man framed in the window, he was genuine anddifferent. Yesterday we should have passed him in the streetunnoticed; to-day the mantle of prophecy clothed him. Within twomonths he might be dead--horribly dead with a bayonet through him. That thought was in the minds of all who watched him; it gave him anadded authority. Yet he was not thinking of himself, of wounds, of death; he was not even thinking of France. He was thinking ofhumanity: "I am setting out to fight the last war--the war of humanitywhich will bring universal peace and friendship to the world. "

Since the war started, how often have we heard that phrase--_the lastwar!_ It became the battle-cry of all recruiting-men, who would havefought under no other circumstances, joined up now so that this mightbe the final carnage. Nations left their desks and went into battlevoluntarily, long before self-interest forced them, simply becauseorganised murder so disgusted them that they were determined by weightof numbers to make this exhibition of brutality the last. 

Before Europe burst into flames in 1914, we believed that the lastwar had been already fought. The most vivid endorsement of this beliefcame out of Germany in a book which, to my mind, up to that time wasthe strongest peace-argument in modern literature. It was so strongthat the Kaiser's Government had the author arrested and every copythat could be found destroyed. Nevertheless, over a million weresecretly printed and circulated in Germany, and it was translated intoevery major European language. The book I refer to was known under itsAmerican title as, _The Human Slaughter-House_. It told very simplyhow men who had played the army game of sticking dummies, foundthemselves called upon to stick their brother-men; how they obeyed atfirst, then sickened at sight of their own handiwork, until finallythe rank and file on both sides flung down their arms, bandedthemselves together and refused to carry out the orders of theirgenerals. There was no declaration of peace; in that moment nationalboundaries were abolished. 

In 1912 this sounded probable. I remember the American press-comments. They all agreed that national prejudices had been broken down to suchan extent by socialism and friendly intercourse, that never againwould statesmen be able to launch attacks of nations against nations. Governments might declare war; the peoples whom they governed wouldmerely overthrow them. The world had become too common-sense to commitmurder on so vast a scale. 

Had it? The world in general might have: but Germany had not. Theargument of _The Human Slaughter-House_ proposed by a German inprotest against what he foresaw was surely coming, turned out to be abad guess. It made no allowance for what happens when a mad dog startsrunning through the world. One may be tender-hearted. One may not likekilling dogs. One may even be an anti-vivisectionist; but when a dogis mad, the only humanitarian thing to do is to kill it. If you don't, the women and children pay the penalty. 

We have had our illustration in Russia of what occurs when one sideflings away its arms, practising the idealistic reasonings which thisbook propounds: the more brutal side conquers. While the Blonde Beastruns abroad spreading rabies, the only idealist who counts is theidealist who carries a rifle on his shoulder--the only gospel to whichthe world listens is the gospel which saviours are dying for. 

The last war! It took us all by surprise. We had believed so utterlyin peace; now we had to prove our faith by being prepared to die forit. If we did not die, this war would not be the last; it would beonly the preface to the next. To paraphrase the words of Mr. Wells, "We had been prepared to take life in a certain way and life had takenus, as it takes every generation, in an entirely different way. We hadbeen prepared to be altruistic pacifists, and ... "

And here we are, in this year of 1918, engaged upon the bloodiest warof all time, harnessing the muscle and brain-power of the universeto one end--that we may contrive new and yet more deadly methodsof butchering our fellow men. The men whom we kill, we do not hateindividually. The men whom we kill, we do not see when they are dead. We scald them with liquid fire; we stifle them with gas; we dropvolcanoes on them from the clouds; we pull firing-levers three, ten, even fifteen miles away and hurl them into eternity unconfessed. Andthis we do with pity in our hearts, both for them and for ourselves. And why? Because they have given us no choice. They have promised, unless we defend ourselves, to snatch our souls from us and fashionthem afresh into souls which shall bear the stamp of their own image. Of their souls we have seen samples; they date back to the darkages--the souls of Cain, Judas and Cæsar Borgia were not unlike them. Of what such souls are capable they have given us examples in Belgium, captured France and in the living dead whom they return by way ofEvian. We would rather forego our bodies than so exchange our souls. A Germanised world is like a glimpse of madness; the very thoughtstrikes terror to the heart. Yet it is to Germanise the world thatGermany is waging war to-day--that she may confer upon us the benefitsof her own proved swinishness. There is nothing left for us but tofight for our souls like men. 

The last war! We believed that at first, but as the years draggedon the certainty became an optimism, the optimism a dream which wewell-nigh knew to be impossible. We have always known that we wouldbeat Germany--we have never doubted that. But could we beat her sothoroughly that she would never dare to reperpetrate this horror?Could we prove to her that war is not and never was a paying way ofconducting business? Men began to smile when we spoke of this war asthe last. "There have always been wars, " they said; "this one is notthe last--there will be others. "

If it is not to be the last, we have cheated ourselves. We havecheated the men who have died for us. Our chief ideal in fighting istaken away. Many a lad who moulders in a stagnant trench, laid downhis life for this sole purpose, that no children of the future agesshould have to pass through his Gethsemane. He consciously gavehimself up as a scapegoat, that the security of human sanity shouldbe safeguarded against a recurrence of this enormity. The spirit-man, framed in the dusky window above the applauding crowds in Quebec, was typical of all these men who have made the supreme sacrifice. Hiswords utter the purpose that was in all their hearts, "I am settingout to fight the last war--the war of humanity which will bringuniversal peace and freedom to the world. "

That promise was becoming a lie; it is capable of fulfilment now. Thedream became possible in April, 1917, when America took up her crossof martyrdom. Great Britain, France and the United States, thethree great promise-keeping nations, are standing side by side. Theytogether, if they will when the war is ended, can build an impregnablewall for peace about the world. The plunderer who knew that it was notGreat Britain, nor France, nor America, but all three of them unitedas Allies that he had to face, no matter how tempted he was to provethat armed force meant big business, would be persuaded to expandhis commerce by more legitimate methods. Whether this dream is tobe accomplished will be decided not upon any battlefield but in thehearts of the civilians of all three countries--particularly inthose of America and Great Britain. The soldiers who have fought andsuffered together, can never be anything but friends. 

My purpose in writing this account of America in France has been togive grounds for understanding and appreciation; it has been to provethat the highest reward that either America or Great Britain can gainas a result of its heroism is an Anglo-American alliance, which willfortify the world against all such future terrors. There never oughtto have been anything but alliance between my two great countries. They speak the same tongue, share a common heritage and pursue thesame loyalties. Had we not blundered in our destinies, there wouldnever have been occasion for anything but generosity. 

The opportunity for generosity has come again. Any man or womanwho, whether by design or carelessness, attempts to mar this growingfriendship is perpetrating a crime against humanity as grave as thatof the first armed Hun who stepped across the Belgian threshold. Itwere better for them that mill-stones were hung about their necks andthey were cast into the sea, than ... 

God is giving us our chance. The magnanimities of the Anglo-Saxonraces are rising to greet one another. If those magnanimities arewelcomed and made permanent, our soldier-idealists will not have diedin vain. Then we shall fulfil for them their promise, "We are settingout to fight the last war. "

THE END